Where Angels Fear to Tread
by PsychoticTiger
Summary: AU. In a desperate attempt to save his sister, Joey sells his soul to the Devil, but nothing's ever that simple. Meanwhile, Yugi struggles to accept the voice inside his head telling him he's destined to save the world. Eventually minor SxJ, YxY, BxR
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: Hey, guess what? I'm not dead! Fabulous! Soo...new story while my other two are on hiatus because this idea has been plaguing me forever.

Summary: AU. In a desperate attempt to save his sister, Joey sells his soul to the Devil, but nothing's ever as simple as that; there's trouble brewing in the afterlife, and he is recruited along with his most favoritest person in the whole universe (sarcasm), Seto Kaiba, to find out what's wrong. Meanwhile, Yugi struggles to cope with the newfound voice inside his head telling him that he is destined to save the world. (Featuring demon!Bakura, Victorian-era-office-lackey!Ryou, and much, much more! XD)

Pairings: Hmm...you tell me. They would be the shounen-ai pairings SxJ, YxY, and BxR if there were any, but you'll have to tell me if I should put them in. I'm very tempted, but I'm just not sure...

Other: Well, you may find this first part sort of boring XD. I can never tell because I reread everything so many times that every word feels boring after awhile. And this will have a real plot...eventually. I'm just taking my sweet time setting it up. Constructive criticism in very welcome, and my ego won't say no to praise.

Disclaimer: Too sickly to think of a witty disclaimer. Don't own, don't sue.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter I

_"For fools rush in where Angels fear to tread."-Alexander Pope_

His shoulders shook violently. Actually, his whole body was shaking, but he noticed the severe jerking of his shoulders the most as each trembling breath he drew racked his chest.

For a moment he caught his distorted likeness in the old cracked mirror across from him. He glared at the jumbled pieces of his reflection and angrily wiped the tears from his face with the back of an ice-cold hand.

Seventeen and a half year-old Joey Wheeler hadn't cried in years. Not _really_ cried. Sure, tears occasionally blurred his vision during a fight, but that was different; that was instinct, his body's reaction to pain, telling him that he'd better get some ice on that black eye, or informing him that his arm was broken yet again.

But this wasn't physical pain. He couldn't suppress it. Not anymore. He had been strong and optimistic at the hospital. Just the sort of big brother she needed right now, the nurse behind the reception desk had assured him. Even walking back home he had kept up appearances, though, unbeknownst to the other people bustling down the icy sidewalk, his heart was being clawed to pieces. Only Yugi would have been able to tell that something was wrong.

But once he had made it to the house, once he had made sure that his dad wasn't home, he had fallen apart. A waterfall of tears had burst forth from their dam, and he was powerless to stop them. Only time slowed their steady flow.

His sobs having subsided, he sprawled himself on the thin, hard bed, his brown eyes, now stained with red, staring up at the cracks above his bed in the otherwise smooth white ceiling.

"If I were religious, I'd be praying now," he informed the familiar formation of cracks right above his head. When he was little he had always thought that it looked like an angel. The resemblance had lessened as he had grown older, but with a small stretch of the imagination he could still make out the slightly deformed figure of a winged person.

There was a long, thoughtful pause in the one-sided conversation. And then, "Aw, hell, why not? Can't hurt, right?"

He chewed his lower lip as he racked his memory for how prayers usually began. It had been a long time since he had done something like this.

"Le'see…Dear God…I know I haven't always been the best kid, but it's just dat, well, my little sister…Serenity…" He choked, and now that he was drained of tears, all the anger that had built up inside of him came flooding out.

"Dammit! I hate you!" he shouted, sitting upright but keeping his glare fixed on the ceiling. "Ya hear me? I hate you! Why do ya have ta kill Serenity? What's she ever done ta you, ya bastard?! She's a nice kid, dammit! SHE DOESN'T DESERVE THIS!"

His chest heaved as he panted, letting out a little bit of rage with each breath. The burning fire slowly faded from his eyes as he lowered his gaze, and he unclenched his white-knuckled fists, feeling a twinge of guilt at the back of his mind.

"Damn. If there _is_ a God, I bet he hates me now."

He lay back down gently, putting his arms behind his head and closing his eyes.

"I'd do anything…anything," he breathed wearily. "I'd…I'd…"

He searched his mind for something he could do. It couldn't be trivial, like promising to do his homework, or not to get into any more fights. It had to be _meaningful_.

But he couldn't think of anything. What could he possibly do that would be worth Serenity's life? Did God even make bargains?

So he said the first thing that popped into his head; the very words he had often heard his father shout in his drunken fits of passion.

"I'd sell my goddamn soul to the Devil!" he pronounced, strangely satisfied with the confident feel of the words as they left his mouth; it was almost as if he had gotten a load off his chest.

He rolled over onto his side, still using one arm as a pillow, and kicked off his well-worn sneakers. Tomorrow was another day. Who knew, maybe Serenity would be doing better in the morning. Maybe the doctors would find something that could help her. He yawned sleepily. Maybe…

He let out a short gasp and shot up, brown eyes wide with alarm, as the doorbell rang.

Joey shuffled to the door, wondering just who it would be at this time of night. Had his dad forgotten his keys? Well, in that case there was no point in hurrying; he might as well let the jerk freeze for a little.

He flicked on the somewhat inadequate porch light and opened the door a crack. His own brown eyes met with those of a strange man, though his just barely qualified as brown; they had a red tint to them, like the color of dried blood.

He took in the rest of the man's appearance: the startling white hair, the equally white teeth of the man's smile, particularly the pronounced canines, and the neat black suit with a maroon shirt that was unbuttoned halfway down his chest.

"Hello," the man said in a gruff, low baritone.

A drug dealer or a pimp if he ever saw one.

"Sorry, we're not interested," said Joey firmly as he pushed the door shut.

With much more strength than he seemed to be capable of, the white-haired man held the door open with one arm and chuckled. It was a deep, throaty chuckle that sent chills up Joey's spine.

"What would you say if I told you that I could give you everything you've always dreamed of?"

"I don't tink ya heard me. I said we're not interested," Joey repeated more forcefully, throwing his weight against the door. It didn't budge.

He barely stopped his jaw from hitting the floor as he realized that the other man wasn't even trying. He was still leaning casually against the door still with just one arm, looking faintly amused at Joey's fruitless efforts.

"You didn't answer my question."

"I _said_—"

"I _know_ what you said," the white-haired man replied testily. "I'm offering you the chance of a lifetime, and you won't even consider the possibilities! Cars, money, sex…"

"I don't—"

"Fame, prestige, presidency…"

"…want—"

"A small island nation, inheritance to the Playboy Mansion…"

"Look, I don't want—"

"Your sister's life…"

Joey stopped struggling against the door and was too stunned to notice that it didn't swing back and send the other man toppling over like it should have. Instead, it stayed right where it was.

"What didja say?" Joey demanded.

"I said, 'Your sister's life'," the man purred, the corner of his mouth twitching upward into a smirk; he knew that he had struck gold.

"How da hell would you know—"

The man's eyes gleamed. "I know a lot of things. Like how you said you'd do anything. Even promise your soul to the Devil."

"Yer da Devil?" Joey asked in a hushed voice. His emotions were torn between awe and fear.

"No. I'm what you would call a demon," the man replied offhandedly. Then, noticing the blonde teenager's confused look, he expanded, "A demon, you know, a freelance agent, though I've temporarily got a contract with Hell. May I come in?"

"So you can—you can really save my sista?"

"I can't do anything out here," the white-haired man or, rather, demon said impatiently.

"Well, I guess ya can come in," said Joey reluctantly. He wasn't entirely sure that he should be trusting this man; he sounded a little…unbalanced. But he _had_ known about Serenity...

The demon hovered just outside the entrance. "You _guess_?"

"Yeah, well what do ya want? A formal invitation?"

The demon smiled viciously. "That would be lovely."

Joey studied him warily. "All right, I cordially invite ya inta da house. Happy?"

"Very," he said, crossing the threshold. "Thank you, Joseph."

"Ya know my name?" Joey asked, not feeling quite as taken aback as he thought he should have been.

The demon began to walk around the small house, peering into the various rooms. "I thought that we had already established that my knowledge about you is almost boundless. Here will do," he pronounced, having briskly circled around the house and returned to the living-room.

He settled himself on a couch and pulled a sheaf of papers from his inside coat pocket as well as a strange-looking pen. It appeared to be an old-fashioned fountain pen, but the tip was abnormally lengthy and seemed to have been filed to a sharp point.

"So what's _yer_ name?" asked Joey, eyeing the dangerous-looking writing utensil uneasily.

"Just call me Bakura. Here," he said, tossing the pen to the other man. "Just jab that in your arm and let it fill while we discuss the terms."

"Just…jab it in my arm…" Joey repeated after him hazily. Was this a dream? A nightmare, more like.

"Is there an echo in here?"

"Why?" he demanded, ignoring the insult. "What've I gotta stab myself fer?"

Bakura scowled. "How else do you expect to sign your name in blood?"

"To sign what?" asked Joey, growing more and more fearful by the second. What was he doing? This was crazy! This _guy_ was crazy! He had probably escaped from an asylum! Would he be able to throw the madman out of his house? The other had already proven he was the stronger of the two…

The white-haired lunatic was obviously annoyed with him and was looking more menacing by the second. "To sign the _contract_. Honestly, how dense can you get?"

"Contract? You never said anyting 'bout a contract before," said Joey accusingly.

"What, you think you can just give me your Boy Scout's honor and we'll call it a deal? _Please_. This is standard procedure for all _animus emo (1)_."

"Fer who?"

"_Beatus id! (2) _Do you want to save your sister or not, mortal?"

"Well, yeah."

"And you're willing to sell your soul to do it?"

There was a long pause as Joey weighed his options. He couldn't hope to win in a fight against the man, so why not just play along? Who knew, maybe this guy could actually do something for Serenity. And it wouldn't be like he was _really_ selling his soul…

"All right. Yeah," said Joey, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Good," the demon said approvingly. "Now we're getting somewhere."

At that moment the doorbell rang again.

"I'll get it," announced Joey, standing up as if in a trance.

"Ignore it," commanded Bakura forcefully.

"It might be my dad," Joey said, almost grateful for once that his old man had come home. He would be a welcome excuse for getting rid of Bakura. He made his way briskly to the door as the bell sounded again.

"I said to ignore it, _mortal_!" Bakura hissed, moving with inhuman speed to block his path.

The doorbell rang twice more in succession. Whoever it was, was getting impatient.

Joey took a step forward, and the white-haired demon followed his motion by taking a step back, his arms spread wide apart, as if waiting to encircle him in a deadly embrace.

Someone now began pounding on the door, making it shake with the force of each knock. The old hinges groaned in protest.

Joey took another step, and Bakura snarled, following the motion in reverse as he, too, took another step back.

'Why doesn't he just knock me out?' Joey wondered. It would certainly be a lot easier.

Experimentally, he slid a foot across the floor towards the demon, who flinched but didn't move. He then took two swift steps forward and turned sharply to the right. Bakura followed him move for move, albeit somewhat ungracefully given the blonde teenager's sudden change of speed and direction.

The corners of Joey's mouth twitched upward as he forced the awkward demon back to the door with a series of unpredictable steps and turns. It was like going back to the ballroom dancing unit of gym class in Junior High.

A loud racket tore Joey from his amusement. He hadn't even been aware that the pounding on the door had ceased, but he was made conscious of the fact now as it started up again and violently crescendo'd to a roar that must have been heard all the way down the block.

Bakura took the few seconds that Joey paused to contemplate this, to shield the doorknob with his body.

"Get away from the door, mortal," he growled. "You want to save your sister? Then don't come near here, or I will guarantee that she won't live to see tomorrow."

He hesitated doubtfully and then grudgingly took a step back. The person outside couldn't possibly be worth his little sister, especially if it was his father.

Whoever it was stopped their merciless pounding.

"Good boy," said Bakura, smiling mockingly. "Now sit down and we'll get back to business."

Obediently, though still somewhat unwillingly, Joey sat.

The person out on the porch gave the door a resounding kick of aggravation. They had obviously wanted to get in pretty badly and seemed to realize that Joey had been effectively dissuaded from opening, or even touching, the door.

The more he thought about it, though, the more Joey wondered what kind of person was on the other side. Who would cause such a threat to Bakura that he would be so desperate to stop Joey from letting them in? Certainly not his dad. And since the person had displayed such a show of strength, why hadn't they just broken the door down?

"Who is it?" asked Joey aloud, his curiosity getting the better of him. "Someone you know?"

"Someone trying to reap my harvest," scowled Bakura. "Now where were we?"

While the demon shuffled through the pile of previously abandoned papers, muttering darkly to himself, Joey's eyes followed the movements of a shadowy figure pacing the porch outside the window. Bakura's rival had obviously not given up as easily as expected. Joey wished the small dim light that he had left on outside earlier was brighter; he could only make out a vague, dark outline of the man, if that was what he was.

The silhouette suddenly stopped moving and the head turned sharply towards him. He couldn't see the eyes, but Joey was sure they were meeting his own gaze.

The figure hurriedly came closer to the window. He flattened the palm of one hand, letting the fingers curl naturally, and thrust it upward sharply.

He wanted the window open.

"Hello? Mortal boy? What at the gates of Heaven are you staring at?" Bakura turned to follow Joey's gaze, and almost instantaneously the figure melted into the shadows.

"Nuthin'," said Joey quickly. "Just a little tired. Do ya tink I could get some fresh air?" he asked, rising from his seat.

"What did I say about the door?" hissed the demon venomously.

"I'm not touchin' da door, kay? I'm just gonna open da winda a crack…"

Bakura grunted.

'Why am I doing this? I shouldn't be doing this!' his mind thought frantically with each step closer to the window. What if he was letting in someone even worse than Bakura? Or what if Bakura could really make good on his threat and have Serenity killed?

But on the other hand, it could be a man in a white coat from the local asylum, explaining to him that there had been some sort of escape …

Joey opened the protesting window just enough so his fingers could get through to the other side, dancing in the crisp night air before hastily being pulled back. That would be enough, wouldn't it? Enough so whoever it was could open it themselves, but not too much so he could still call it a mistake if Bakura flew into a rage.

Joey jumped as a barely audible and seemingly disembodied voice directed, "Invite me in."

He couldn't see the silhouette anywhere. Maybe it had just been his imagination.

"What?" he breathed back nervously.

"Invite me in," the voice repeated in an urgent, husky whisper.

He heard where it was coming from this time and pushed his head against the far right side of the window so that he could see the figure of a man pressed against the house out of the corner of his eye.

The blonde jumped again as he heard a sudden noise behind him. Bakura was sniffing at the air like a wolf on the prowl.

"_Now_!" the voice hissed.

"Get away from there!" Bakura roared, leaping at him.

But the words had already involuntarily left Joey's mouth.

"Come in."

Before the boy and the demon had time to react, the window was fully thrown open, and a tall, broad-shouldered man in a white suit straddled the sill and stepped inside. He grunted as he pulled a large silver briefcase after him, stumbling backwards, but quickly catching his balance.

He looked like a businessman. _Not_ like a doctor for the criminally insane.

"About fucking time," he said moodily as he brushed a stray piece of chestnut hair behind his ear and straightened the silk tie around his neck. It was sapphire blue, the same color as his piercing eyes.

Joey had the strange feeling that he had seen this man before. Maybe at school? He didn't look that much older than himself…He could only stare as the two men began to talk.

"Bakura," the tall man growled menacingly. "I thought so."

"He's _mine_, Kaiba," the white-haired demon snarled back. "It's not _my_ problem if you're behind on your quota. I saw him first!"

"Don't be ridiculous," Kaiba scoffed. "You know I don't do field work."

"Then what are you here for?" Bakura demanded.

"_Someone's _been messing with my system."

"So? Talk to Duke; he's the techno slave."

"I have. He's not admitting anything, of course, and I'm having my entire program rewritten as we speak."

"My deepest sympathy. In case you hadn't noticed, I have a business negotiation to attend to, so if you would just—"

"No you don't," the brunette cut him off.

Bakura arched an eyebrow, his eyes gleaming dangerously. "Excuse me?"

"You know the rules, Bakura. Everyone gets a fair shot at him. If Devlin's been piggybacking off of my system, then Satan must have him passing on the information to his legions of demons. That constitutes as an unfair advantage."

"_Beatus id! _We're demons, for Lucifer's sake! What do you expect? The number of infractions we've made on your precious so-called rules would be as numerous as the two-thirds of the stars left in the blessed sky!"

"Not using _my_ system! I won't stand for it!" Kaiba took a deep breath. "Look, I can respect your skills as a soul-broker and value them highly, but if you try to screw me over, you're going to be coming up against a whole lot more than you bargained for. I'm head of my department now, Bakura; I can make the afterlife very difficult for you."

Joey shivered. It was real, then, all this talk of demons and the Devil and selling souls. It _had_ to be. Somehow this tall, blue-eyed man _made_ it real. It had been easy to think of Bakura as crazy with his untamed white hair and feral eyes, but the way this man acted, so cool and crisp and undeniably sane, it was almost impossible to doubt his assertions.

"Tch. So it's true what they say about people who climb to the top. How quickly they forget about all the little people who helped get them there. What kind of gratitude is this, Kaiba?" the white-haired demon snapped.

"I'm being generous, Bakura. I know people who are hauling in demons by the cartload and having their licenses revoked for doing this. And with the way today's been going, I'm just about ready to start doing the same thing myself. So either you leave now and I let you off with a warning, or we do this the hard way."

Bakura pretended to contemplate this. He was no idiot. There was only one good choice.

He waved his hand airily. "Have him, Kaiba. I only need one more for this quarter, and I'm expecting three by the end of the week. Besides, he's denser than lead."

"Hey!" interjected Joey, having finally latched on to something in the conversation that he could understand.

Kaiba ran a skilled eye over the blonde teenager. "Well, there's no accounting for taste; besides, _I'm_ not the one who chose him."

The white-haired demon snorted, preferring not to reply to the statement as he pocketed his lethal pen and sheaf of papers.

"If you need a ride, I can give you one once we're done," Kaiba said with cool civility.

"I don't think so. You're not the only one who's been promoted recently; I've got my own car now," he said, jauntily tossing up a set of keys before snatching them out of the air. "Besides, there's another devastated soul around here I want to check up on. A businessman whose little world has just come crashing down. Sound familiar?"

Kaiba glared but said nothing.

The demon smiled to himself. Then he turned to Joey and the smile widened to a wicked grin.

"See you in Hell," he said as flames erupted from the floor beneath his feet. They grew and danced upward over his body until they completely engulfed him, taking last his lingering catlike grin.

1) Animus emo- Soul Transaction

2) Beatus id- Bless it (I think...don't know Latin v.v)


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Notes: Guess where I've been! That's right, orchestra field trip to Washinton D.C.! Right in the middle of my research paper! Which I should be finishing up now, but I'm writing this instead! Hooray!

Anyways, since I have two votes for and none against shounen-ai, you're going to get it!...eventually. And is going to be light. And it will probably be less important than saving the universe for the characters. Probably. Leave me alone, I've incorporated romance into my fics before!

Well, enjoy the chapter! Joey and Seto dragged it out incessantly, completely stealing Yugi's appearance which I had planned for the end of this chapter. Jerks. Ah, well, next time.

Disclaimer: I tried to take over the capital and hold it ransom so I could own Yu-Gi-Oh!, but my director said he'd have to send me home, so I just bought cheap souvenirs instead.

Reviews will be given a good home!

* * *

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter Two

"Overly dramatic as usual," the tall brunette man said distastefully as the last of the flames that had swallowed Bakura flickered and died out.

Joey opened his mouth to say something, but no sound would come out. He closed it and then tried again several times in succession, giving him an appearance not unlike that of a stunned goldfish.

"To business, then," the man said, oblivious to Joey's evident distress. He sat down at the edge of a chair and hefted his large silver briefcase onto the coffee-table in front of him.

Joey emitted a sharp strangled noise from the back of his throat as he attempted to form coherent words, causing the other man to glance up, more out of annoyance than concern.

"Is there something you wanted before we begin?" he asked impatiently as he opened his briefcase to remove a laptop and a neat stack of heavy parchment.

"I-I…Who? What? How did…?" Joey spit out, all the questions in his mind struggling for priority as they burst through his lips.

"As I predict that the questions you are trying to ask are both mundane and time-consuming, I refuse to answer them until this contract is underway, if at all."

"But—"

"_I_ will be the one asking questions now, Wheeler."

Joey bristled. "Who da hell do ya tink you are just bustin' in here and ord'ren me around?" he demanded.

"Seto Kaiba, Head of Technology at Purgatory. You will, however, address me as Mr. Kaiba. Now sit, Wheeler."

"Make me, _Kaiba_," Joey retorted, intentionally dropping the title 'Mister' that the other man had specified.

Kaiba clicked his tongue in annoyance and weighed his options. The temptation to drop this insolent boy and move on was almost too strong to resist. But…he had seen and heard a lot, maybe even too much for him to be let go without some sort of binding agreement. After all, _he_ might be an unremarkable teenager whose story would only be bought by desperate tabloids, but you never knew who might pick up on that story and decide to believe it.

The tall brunette sighed. "You're like a disobedient dog, do you know that, mutt?"

Joey flushed with anger. "I'm not a dog! But yer a—a…What da _hell_ are ya doin', ya freak?" he yelped, tripping over an armchair as he scrambled to get away from the other man.

"Is this some sort of trick question? What does it _look_ like I'm doing?" the other retorted, unbuckling the black leather belt around his waist.

"It looks like yer bein' a fuckin' pervert, dat's what! I'm callin' da police if ya don't get da hell outta here in da next three seconds!" Joey shouted, grabbing the telephone off of the side table and clutching it to his chest for dear life. "Look, I'm punchin' da buttons now," he announced, his hands shaking as he suited actions to his words. "Nine…"

Kaiba let out a deep sigh of annoyance. _This_ was why he had requested a desk job after his training. He closed his eyes and concentrated.

"One…On—"

Before Joey could press the last button the brunette simply vanished into thin air.

He waited a few doubtful seconds and then gently put the phone back on its hook, standing up to put it on the side table. Nothing happened. He took a few uneasy steps forward, moving to right the overturned armchair. All remained calm.

A small sigh of relief escaped his lips as he allowed himself a wary smile of victory.

Then he shivered. Of course, the window was still open! He hadn't even noticed it before. He quickly moved to it and slammed it shut; he didn't want any more of _them_ getting in.

Joey looked out at the star-sprinkled sky and yawned sleepily, tousling his thick blonde hair with one hand. Drowsy and triumphant, he turned from the window and shuffled off to bed.

Or at least he tried to. There was something blocking his path. Something… very… tall.

* * *

With impossible swiftness Kaiba threw his belt around the Joey and pulled it tight, successfully strapping the blonde's wrists to his waist. He then proceeded to shove the boy backwards into the armchair. Circling around to the back of it, the tall man pinned Joey's neck and shoulders to the soft upholstery with his hands. 

"Now," Kaiba said, leaning down to hiss the words into his ear, "You will stop talking and listen. Trying to scream or run would only be stupid, even for you, so just be a good boy and sit."

Joey willed himself to speak, but the words wouldn't come.

Kaiba nodded to himself, pleased that his ears met with a break of silence. It was good to be able to hear himself think again.

"So, you want to sell your soul, is that it?" he asked critically.

Joey opened his mouth to answer, but thought the better of it, remaining mute.

Kaiba sighed. So _that's_ how he was going to play it.

"You will respond when addressed."

Joey continued to stare sullenly forward, his brown eyes drilling holes into the wall across from him.

"Dammit!" Kaiba cursed, jerking the chair and its occupant out of temper. He had to do _something_ about the boy. He couldn't let him get away with insulting him like this, not to mention the information he might have acquired listening to him and Bakura. There had to be something he could use to get him to cooperate. He had obviously valued something highly enough to bargain with Bakura…but he wasn't talking.

Kaiba frowned in thought, putting one hand on his hip while letting the other run through his chestnut locks.

Well, if he wasn't going to tell him, then he was going to find out!

Brimming with frustration and determination, Kaiba strode over to the coffee-table where his laptop was still sitting. Hopefully those lackeys hadn't wrecked what he had saved of the system while he was gone.

"Let's see," he murmured, his voice accompanied by the soft tap of his fingers as they flew over the keyboard. "Wheeler…Joseph was it?...not that one…."

Joey fidgeted uneasily in the armchair, craning his neck to try and see what was on the softly glowing screen of the computer. He quickly gave up that idea as his neck began to grow stiff and instead contemplated how to loose himself from his bonds.

The leather belt was cutting into his wrists and cutting off his circulation. He twisted his hands painfully, trying to work them free. Joey's eyes welled with tears for the second time that day. Forcing them back, he tried to find something else to occupy his mind with.

'Wow, my pants are really…blue,' he thought loudly, trying to fill his mind with sound as another jolt of pain shot up his arm.

That's when something shiny caught his eye. It was the buckle on the belt that was restraining him. It was a bright, well-polished silver. Some sort of monogram. KC. He wondered whose initials they were. Definitely not Seto Kaiba's. Funny, they seemed sort of familiar.

"Say, you ever work at Kaiba Corp?" he asked thoughtfully. He flushed as the words left his mouth, the obvious connection suddenly reaching his brain.

Kaiba looked up from the laptop. "Tell me," he said, "Do you ever think about your words before you say them?"

"Well, dey'res pro'bly more den one Kaiba in da world," defended Joey.

"And they all carry belt buckles emblazoned with the logo of a company with which they have absolutely no affiliation," the brunette retorted sarcastically.

"Shut up," muttered Joey, still a lovely shade of crimson.

His curiosity wouldn't allow him to be still for long, though.

"So are you, like, his dad er sumtin'?" he asked.

"Whose dad?" asked Kaiba blankly, now completely distracted from his work.

"Ya know, da guy whose President of Kaiba Corp. He was adopted, right? Yer sorta young, though…maybe his uncle?"

It was Kaiba's turn to go red, though his was a much less violent shade. "You're talking about Mokuba? I'm his brother."

Joey snorted. "No way. He died when I was in, like, second grade. Made some big deal of it on da news. Everyone was freakin' out dat da stock market was gonna crash er sumtin."

"Were they?" Kaiba looked thoughtful. "What about now? How's the company doing?"

Joey laughed. "Where da hell ya been, Kaiba? Some close relation you are! It's only one a da richest companies in da world!"

Kaiba seemed to relax. "He was so young…I always knew he'd pull through, though," he murmured more to himself than to Joey.

"Wait, hold up! Yer not seriously his brotha, right? I mean, you'da have had faked yer death er sumtin'!"

"No, plane crash did a pretty through job of killing me."

"Yer _dead_?!"

"Well, that _is_ one of the qualifications to work in the afterlife," Kaiba replied dryly, resuming his work on the computer.

"If I was seven den…" Joey quickly counted on his fingers. "You've been dead ten years!"

"You can do simple math. I'm shocked," the taller man deadpanned, not bothering to look up this time.

"So what's it like being dead?" Joey asked conversationally. He didn't seem to mind that he had been talking with a dead man for over an hour. After all that had happened today, not much would have been able to stun him for long.

"You'll find out sooner or later," was his vague reply. Kaiba ran his finger down the screen. "Looks like sooner," he muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing. Here's your stat sheet. Now, shall I guess what you want? For your parents to get back together? To be wealthy? To be cared for?"

"I want Serenity to get better."

"Hmm…Serenity…your sister. In the hospital. You're rather desperate, I see. What was so hard about telling me this _before_ wasting almost an hour of my time?"

"You were bein' a jerk. Ya still are," Joey replied with smug satisfaction.

Kaiba's head shot up. "Would you rather have Bakura?" he demanded irritably. "I can get him back, but in exchange you'll probably be damning your soul to hell for nearly an eternity. At least I'm giving you options and a fair deal."

"Why?" demanded Joey suspiciously.

"Because that's part of the oath I took to get my job."

"Oh."

There was a lull in the conversation.

"I can get you one in Hell or five in Purgatory," Kaiba reported crisply.

"One what? Year?" asked Joey, a little bewildered.

"Century," replied Kaiba coolly.

"A whole century in Hell?" balked Joey.

"Or five in Purgatory. This is, of course, generally. We can alter your contract so that if you gain any skills that would make you valuable in any specialty field, you may be able to bargain a few years here or there."

"Okay, let's do dat," Joey agreed.

Kaiba shuffled through the parchment before him. "Let's see, a flexible five-term in Purgatory…"

"One in Hell," Joey corrected sternly.

Kaiba raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"I want to go to Hell," Joey insisted.

"Is there any particular reason why you want to go to Hell?" asked Kaiba disbelievingly.

Joey hesitated. "Because it's shorter. And I said I would."

Kaiba put down the page he was holding and leaned back a little in his chair.

"The term in Hell is shorter, I'll allow that, but it's also more … intense," he explained patiently.

Joey jutted out his jaw and looked him in the eye. "I can handle it."

"It's not a question of—"

"Why should _you_ care? It's my soul, right?" Joey challenged.

Kaiba gazed back at him levelly. "You're right," he pronounced coldly, "I shouldn't care. If it's Hell you want, then it's Hell you'll get, mutt."

He pulled a different sheet of parchment out from the stack and pushed it towards Joey. It was covered with spidery handwriting. He couldn't read it. Not because of the writing, but because it was in another language.

"You'll have to sign here, here, and here," said Kaiba, leaning across the coffee-table to indicate each spot.

"Ya have ta untie me first," Joey croaked. He hadn't even noticed that his mouth had gone completely dry.

Kaiba nodded vaguely and stood up to unbuckle his belt from around the blonde, strapping comfortably back onto his own waist.

Joey gratefully rubbed the circulation back into his wrists as he studied the paper that seemed to loom before him ominously.

From out of his briefcase, Kaiba extracted an odd contraption made of flexible plastic tubing. He ripped the wrapper off of a sterilized needle and attached it firmly to one end.

Joey shuddered. "Let me guess," he said. "I've gotta sign my name in blood?"

"Naturally. Just fill it to the line," said Kaiba handing the needle to him.

"Where?" he asked.

"There." Kaiba pointed to the spot.

"Here?"

"No, _there_."

"Where? Why can't _you_ just do it?" asked Joey in disgusted.

"Because I'm not allowed to draw blood from you in any way, or otherwise directly harm you physically, mentally, or emotionally. Even just tying you up is going to put me under review for a few months."

Joey sighed and bit his lip in concentration, praying that he wasn't about to severely injure himself. He watched the tube fill with rich red blood. _His_ blood. He tried not to think about it.

"That's enough," said Kaiba.

Joey gently removed the needle from his arm and Kaiba handed him the other end, which was a fountain pen not unlike Bakura's. This way seemed a lot more sanitary than his, though.

Kaiba's finger pointed to the first line that required his signature. Joey brought the pen so it hovered just above it. His hand was shaking. He pulled it away from the parchment.

"What does it say?" he asked quietly. "I can't read it, does it have everything?"

Kaiba nodded. "It's all above board. One year in the service of Hell in exchange for your sister's survival of her illness. I doubt if she'll ever have so much as a cold again in her life. This part here is what you would call the fine print. It basically says that if something else happens to her, it's not their responsibility and you still have to hold up your end of the bargain. So, if walking out of the hospital she gets hit by a car, the contract still stays in place. And this part says that at no time after you have signed it may you forfeit the agreement while Hell reserves the right to do so at any time it chooses."

"That's not fair!" Joey proclaimed.

Kaiba shrugged. "By selling your soul, you're automatically taking a risk; by selling to Hell, you're increasing it ten-fold. Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yes," replied Joey hoarsely as he leaned forward over the parchment. This was for Serenity; anything was worth it. The least he could do was insure that she wouldn't die slowly and painfully from suffering illness. Besides, how much worse than real life could Hell really be?

He lowered the pen so it touched the parchment, lightly drawing a curve to form a "J."

He paused for a second. "Do I write my full name er just 'Joey'?"

"Write whatever you want," replied Kaiba darkly. "It's your blood; they'll find you."

Joey looked up at him. He looked like a formidable figure, sitting there with his arms crossed, glaring holes through some poor object. He seemed a lot more distant than before.

'Prob'ly because I didn't take his advice,' thought Joey.

He hesitated again and then signed '_Joey Wheeler'_ with a flourish.

"And here," Kaiba pointed to the next spot, his tone still acid.

'_Joey Wheeler'_

"And here."

'_Joey Wheeler'_ Joey signed the last line hurriedly, trying not to give himself enough time to realize what he was doing.

Kaiba swiftly rolled up the parchment and packed it away in his case along with his laptop, the pen, which he first bagged separately, and the other papers.

"That's that," he said, standing up. "Hope you enjoy the rest of your life, mutt." He gave Joey a look something like…pity.

Joey didn't like it. He was about to say so when the other man forced a small silver square into his hand.

"My card," the towering brunette explained. "Keep it on you at all times in case there's any trouble about your contract. Even in the shower if possible. You never know when you might die. Only you'll be able to see it."

"But—"

Kaiba ignored him and opened the door, letting in the chill night air.

"You can't just—"

"Stay, mutt. Go to bed."

He left Joey gaping in the doorway and started up the sleek silver car in the driveway. With a cool nod, he pulled the car out of the drive and sped down the street.

"Ya blew a stop sign!" Joey called after him; but he was long gone.

He stared at the heavy card of silver in his hand. Inscribed on it were the words:

SETO KAIBA

1980-1997

HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY

PURGATORY

On the left edge of it were a bunch of tiny symbols, meaningless to him.

He slid it into his pocket and went to bed for the third time that evening, this time uneventfully.

"Third time's the charm," he murmured to himself as he snuggled under the covers of his bed.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Notes: Hey, sorry about the delay, but guess what? I'm on Spring Break! So hopefully I'll get some more chapters done to make up for it because I LOVE YOU GUYS! Seriously, I've gotten more reviews for two chapters than I used to for, like, six. Keep sending your feedback!

Neeways, this chapter has, well, not much action. Serenity makes an appearance (probably one time since I'm not very fond of her, but she _is_ Joey's sister), Yugi questions his sanity, Yugi questions Joey's sanity, Joey questions his own sanity...annnnd, yeah. Don't worry; next chapter should be more interesting. And one day maybe we'll get to the main plot. Maybe.

Disclaimer: Since I spend part of my pathetic existence writing fanfic, I think it would be more proper to say that the series owns me.

* * *

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter III

The door to the hospital room opened and then shut quietly. Serenity Wheeler turned her auburn-haired head towards the sound, wishing, not for the first time in several months, that she could see who it was.

She heard the steady click of a woman's heels as their owner crossed the room that Serenity had called "home" for the past six weeks. The woman, whoever she was, probably wasn't a nurse; nurses were too practical to wear heels all day. It wasn't her doctor either; her doctor walked more briskly.

"Hello?" she called experimentally into the perpetual darkness.

"Oh!" the woman exclaimed. "I didn't know you were awake…er, Serenity," she said in a startled voice. It was smoky and almost sultry; Serenity wasn't sure if she liked it, but it certainly had character.

"Are you a doctor?" the fourteen-year-old asked.

"I'm just an errand girl for the hot-shot," the woman replied with a hint of resentment in her voice. A student doctor, then?

"What's your name?"

She could feel the woman hesitating. "Just call me Mai," she said finally.

"Mai...am I going to die?" Serenity asked spontaneously. No one would give her a straight answer, but she could hear her impending doom in the hushed funeral whispers of the nurses outside her door, in her mother's sudden bursts of tears, and in the cracking of her brother's voice.

"Not today, hun'," replied Mai with easy confidence. "I'm going to change your IV's, okay?"

"They changed them this evening. Is it morning already?" asked the girl as Mai brushed strands of her long hair away from the tubes in her arm.

"Mmm…not really. We just got this new medicine, though, and the boss wanted you to have it right away. Can't say the Devil doesn't keep his promises."

"What?"

"Nothing. Bless it! I just broke a nail!"

Serenity silently wondered if she wanted this woman sticking a needle into her.

"All right, hun', this'll only hurt a second…"

Odd, she could almost feel the new medicine coursing through her veins. It was cool with a pleasant tingling sensation. And suddenly she was tired. She felt as if she hadn't slept in a hundred years. She gave a yawn that a lion would have envied.

"Goodnight, hun'," said the woman gently, the click of her heels fading towards the door.

"Goodnight, Mai," she murmured. And then she tumbled into unconsciousness.

* * *

"Hey there, sweetheart," came the familiar cheerful voice of Jan, the morning nurse. "How are we doing this morning? Funny, looks like something's wrong with your IV."

Serenity gently raised her head, her long wisps of auburn hair spilling over her shoulders. "I think…" she began, slightly confused.

With a sharp tug she jerked off the bandages that covered her hazel eyes, and they fell away from her face. Light flooded into her view, almost blinding her again, but she refused to let it overcome her. Squinting, she began to make out the plump, beaming face of the woman in front of her.

"My God," the nurse breathed. "It's a miracle! Heather! Get Dr. Rice!"

Serenity fell back onto her pillow, drinking in the sights around her. There were so many shapes! And colors! She had forgotten just how many colors there were in the world!

Suddenly, something came to her. "Where's Mai?" she asked.

"Your what, dear?" asked the nurse.

"No, the lady. Mai. She was in my room last night and gave me some medicine."

Jan blinked. "We don't have anyone named Mai."

"I think she might have been a student."

Jan's short brown curls shook with her head. "Students don't go near the patients without supervision. Besides, we don't have a medicine that can do anything like this. Sweetheart, you must have met an angel."

Serenity's hazel eyes grew wide. "An angel…" she repeated softly.

It might have been her imagination, but she thought she the heard a woman's short hollow laugh.

* * *

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEE--

The last high-pitched scream of the alarm clock was stopped short as Yugi successfully located the 'off' button using only his hand. He rolled over in his bed and groaned, blearily opening one eye to try to make out the luminous red numbers on the face of the clock. 6:45.

'C'mon, get up before you fall back asleep!' part of him urged.

'But it's so cold out there! Besides, the sun's not even up yet!' another part of him whined in protest.

'You're going to be sorry when you're late for school,' the sensible part of him retorted.

Yugi experimentally stuck foot out from under the covers but quickly pulled it back in, snuggling even deeper into the warmth of the bed.

"I'm not going out there," he announced to no one, his voice slightly muffled by the covers he had pulled up over his nose.

With this satisfaction he closed his eyes and readied himself for some extra sleep.

Then he remembered.

"My homework!" he groaned, throwing off his blankets and flinging himself from the bed.

He had promised himself last night that he would finish his history homework in the morning…why hadn't he set the alarm earlier?

In a flurry of clothes he changed into his school uniform, tripping over the long legs of the pants as dashed down the stairs. He was always tripping on his uniform because it was too big; every year his mother optimistically insisted that he needed something to "grow into," as if being forced to wear an ill-fitting school uniform would magically make him taller.

Yugi thought about this for what must have been the hundredth time as he hastily rolled up the cuffs of his pants and pressed on, grabbing his backpack from the hall as he passed it.

He darted into the kitchen, hopeful of being able to shovel _something_ down for breakfast.

He was in luck. An unclaimed plate of toast sat in the center of the table, and he grabbed a slice, holding it in his mouth as he yanked his history book out of his backpack.

"I thought you said you had finished your homework, Yugi," his mother said, stepping into the kitchen with a disapproving frown.

"Tha' waf my mafh homeworg," Yugi replied with the toast still between his teeth; his hands were busy flipping through the pages of the history textbook. Then, taking the toast out of his mouth he asked, "Do you know where Grandpa is?"

Solomon Motou had been an archeologist in his younger years, and Yugi had been counting on his being able to help him out at moments like these when he signed of for Ancient History at the start of the semester. That way he would have one less thing to worry about; he already had enough on his hands trying to pull up his math grade.

"Mmm…I think he went downtown to the exhibition this morning to see the gaming prototype that Kaiba Corp. has just released."

Yugi swallowed the piece of toast he had just bitten off without chewing it, feeling it sink along with his heart to the very pit of his stomach. There was no way he would be able to finish this in time for school without his grandpa's help! He looked down dejectedly at the questions yet to be answer.

Unless…his eyes scanned the page…yes! They were all about Ancient Egypt!

Yugi loved Ancient Egypt. For some reason, he just couldn't seem to learn enough about it. When this was discovered about two years ago, his grandpa had been beyond delighted and eagerly fueled his grandson's passion with an endless supply of books, artifacts, and legends. The fact was that Yugi was probably better versed on the subject than the writer of this textbook. Answering twenty questions now seemed like a piece of cake.

'The Nile. Papyrus. Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms. Obelisks. Imhotep.'

The answers seemed to be coming to him even before he finished reading each question. He paused to take a bite of toast.

'_Ramses II. Seti I. Queen Hashepsut. Astronomical calendar_.'

Yugi froze. He had stopped, but the stream of answers in his head hadn't.

'_This is easy. I wonder what he was so worried about_.'

Yugi nearly choked. It wasn't him thinking those thoughts. There was a voice inside his head that didn't belong to him, and by all accounts that was a very bad thing.

"Hello?" he said aloud.

"Yes, hello, Yugi," his mother said from across the table, frowning again. "I've been trying to get your attention for the past five minutes. Don't you think you had better be starting for school?"

Yugi glanced at the clock and scribbled down the answers to the rest of his homework.

"Have a nice day at school, Yugi," his mother called as he slipped out the door.

He didn't answer, and she sighed as she cleared the table. Sometimes she really did worry about her son and his odd habits.

* * *

'Hello?' Yugi called mentally as his body automatically followed the route to school. 'Is anyone there?'

No one answered, and he felt rather silly for trying to talk to a voice inside his head. It had probably just been his imagination.

'_I wish he wouldn't go this way…' _

Yugi stopped short, fortunately just before he entered the intersection. It was the voice again. It was deep and vibrant, though at the moment sounding very distressed. The fact remained, however, that it was definitely not Yugi's.

'_I know that bully is going to be waiting for him…Ra, why was I not granted the power to do something about this sort of thing!'_

Could the owner of this voice see into the future? No, that would just be insane.

'Then again,' thought Yugi wryly, 'Isn't it insane to have a voice inside your head?'

Yugi decided to take another way to school.

'_Thank Isis!_'

* * *

In the crowd of people milling about the schoolyard, Yugi caught sight of a large blonde mop that could only belong to one person, and he darted towards it.

"Joey!" he called, weaving his way through what must have been half of the student body.

"Hey Y-Yug," the blonde greeted him, stifling a yawn.

Yugi frowned, his own preoccupations forgotten. Joey was usually tired at school, but these past few days he had seemed a lot more exhausted than normal. The heavy dark circles under his eyes betrayed that this wasn't Joey's usual laziness, but that he actually wasn't getting enough sleep. He seemed a lot more nervous, too. He jumped at the slightest noises and freaked out over the strangest things.

"Are you alright?" asked Yugi gently.

"Yeah, just tired," said Joey, grinning apologetically as he stifled yet another yawn.

"Yugi, Joey!" shouted a familiar voice. The two of them looked up to see Tristan sprinting towards them, looking like some sort of malformed charging rhinoceros with his head lowered so that his solitary brown spike stuck out like a horn.

"Man, Joey," he said, panting as he slowed to a stop in front of them, "You'd better watch out for Tea; she's on the rampage! Looks like she finally found the rubber snake that you slipped into her shampoo bottle."

Tristan chuckled as he caught his breath and Yugi tried to hide his amusement with a failed look of disapproval. Joey smiled faintly; it seemed like forever ago that he had pulled that trick. Had it really only been two days since…it was better not to think about that.

"So how's Serenity doing?" asked Tristan, becoming more serious.

"Even betta. Da doctors say she'll be out in a coupla weeks, maybe soona."

"That's wonderful, Joey!" exclaimed Yugi, now even more puzzled about his friend's strange behavior. If Serenity was getting better, then why was Joey getting worse?

He didn't have long to contemplate this, though. Over the soft morning chatter of the students of Domino High came the earth-shattering screech of a woman scorned.

"Joseph Wheeler, you are going to _Hell_!"

* * *

School was over. Yugi noted with relief that the voice had been quite all day…mostly. There was one incident where it had made a rather scathing remark about his English teacher's dress sense or, more correctly, lack thereof, and he had only managed to stop himself from bursting into a fit of giggles by remembering that _It _was talking. That had sobered him up immediately.

Oh, well. As long as there was going to be a voice in his head, it might as well have a good sense of humor.

He tilted his head upward and gazed at the cloudy gray sky thoughtfully. He wished that Joey would hurry up; it looked like rain.

Finally, after what seemed to Yugi like an eternity, the blonde shuffled out of the school, his head bent over something.

"Hey, Joey," Yugi cheerfully greeted his best friend. "Whatcha working on?"

"Makin' a necklace," said Joey vaguely as he successfully strung the silver card Kaiba had given him onto the ball chain that Tea had let him have at lunch. In return, of course, he had had to promise not to play anymore pranks on her until the end of the school year, but it was probably worth it. Kaiba had said to keep the card on him at all times since he'd never know when he was going to die…That probably meant that he was going to be killed in some crazy freak accident…

"Did you fix the chain, then?" inquired Yugi politely. Requesting the broken chain that Tea had found when cleaning out her purse had been odd even for Joey.

"Yeah," said Joey with a note of pride in his voice. He had spent the better part of his classes trying to drill through the silver card with whatever pointy object was nearby, and he had managed to weld the chain while his teacher wasn't looking in shop class.

He draped it over his hand and held it aloft, surveying his handiwork. It looked like a dog tag. And he had the sneaking suspicion that Kaiba had planned it that way.

"Are you going to put something on it?" asked Yugi as Joey grudgingly slid his creation over his neck.

The blonde stared blankly at the shorter boy and then remembered. Yugi couldn't see the card. Kaiba had said that only _he_ would be able to.

"Naw. I tink I'll wear it like dis," Joey replied absentmindedly. Then, with more thought, he asked critically, "What're ya waitin' around here fer? Shouldn'cha be gettin' home by now?"

Yugi smiled a little at his best friend's protective tone. "I just wanted to ask if you wanted to sleep over tonight; my mom won't mind since it's a Friday and I though we could help each other study for physics…"

What Yugi wanted was some sanity. He needed someone to ground him, and who better than easygoing, down-to-earth Joey Wheeler? Even if he was acting a little strangely, it was nothing compared to the havoc being played with Yugi's head.

"Sure, count me in!" agreed Joey eagerly. He just needed to do something completely ordinary. No demons, no contracts, no Hell, no dead billionaires…just something normal. And what could be more normal than hanging out with your best friend?

'_This ought to be interesting,' _observed the rich, chocolaty voice that only Yugi could hear.

* * *

"We did good," declared Joey, yawning.

Yugi was inclined to agree, but Joey's yawn stopped him from saying so by making him yawn as well.

It was 3 AM, and the two teenage boys had certainly accomplished a lot. They had gotten to Yugi's, studied physics…for about fifteen minutes, ate cookies, admired Yugi's grandpa's newly purchased gaming system, lamented at the breakdown of said system a few minutes later, played videogames, gorged on pizza and ice cream, played catch in the house, inevitably broke a lamp and repaired it, were blackmailed into helping take inventory of the game shop by Yugi's grandpa who had seen the broken pieces of the lamp, played an ancient board game, prank called several people they knew, made fun of the infomercials on television, made popcorn, and watched an R-rated movie.

"I'm tired," proclaimed Yugi, flinging himself backwards onto the blankets they had piled in front of the television. "I'm going to sleep."

Good to his word, as always, Yugi was promptly out cold.

Joey smiled to himself as he sprawled across the floor and closed his eyes. He could sure use a goodnight's rest.

Yugi whimpered in his sleep, and Joey silently wished he had brought his tape recorder. His small friend sometimes talked in his sleep, but he never believed it when Joey told him in the morning.

"_Hush, little one. I'm watching over you_."

Joey started. The voice was deep and rich with an affectionate tone. Yugi's dad was out of town, it didn't belong to Yugi's grandpa, and it sure as Hell wasn't Yugi's mom's.

Joey slowly turned his head, his heart pounding, praying to everything good and sweet that the voice had just been a figment of his imagination.

But the voice had an owner. A man was more or less draped over his best friend, gently brushing aside one of the angular yellow bangs that hung over his small delicate features.

Joey didn't give himself time to regain his wits; he hardly even had time to think. He just took action.

He launched himself at the man with a small war cry that was quickly stifled as his head hit the floor. He quickly jumped up, fists clenched and knees bent, ready to fight.

"You can see me?" asked the voice in a whisper coming from behind him.

Joey whipped around, but no one was there.

"Of course I could see ya, ya freakin' pervert. Why don'tcha come out and fight?" Joey barked.

"Keep quiet! He's asleep!" the voice hissed irritably.

This time the sound seemed to come from…above him? Joey looked up with a start to see a shadowy figure stretched out as if lying on some invisible shelf in the air above Joey's head, regarding him with catlike curiosity.

The blonde stumbled backwards, unceremoniously landing on his rear end as he continued to stare at the floating man.

"What da--?"

"So you _can_ see me. This is different," said the man, cocking his head a little. "You've never been able to see me before…"

"Before?" asked Joey, slightly dazed. "Just how long ya been here?"

"Almost a year now," replied the man with a touch of smugness.

His tone rekindled the anger in Joey's chest. This guy was probably some sort of demon; he had been bothering Yugi for almost a year, and he hadn't even known it! Well, he was going to do something about it now!

"Why don'tcha come down where I can see ya?" he demanded furiously but softly, with unconscious regard for the still slumbering Yugi.

The invisible shelf the man was lying on seemed suddenly to give way, letting gravity pull the man to the floor. He landed crouched on his feet with catlike grace before straightening up to his full height, bringing the top of his head just about level with Joey's nose.

Joey gaped. He could see now that the other man looked just like Yugi. If Yugi were tanner, older, taller, cockier, and dressed like a punk rocker with a belt fetish. So maybe he didn't look _that_ much like Yugi…

"Hello, Joey," Yugi's not really, but sort of look-a-like said, his garnet eyes sparkling with faint amusement.


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Notes: This is what might be called my "make-up" chapter since my last one was overdue. I had most of the end typed out anyway, so I thought "Why not? I'm on break, I'm inspired, and I'm pumped from getting reviews." At a little over four thousand words, this is my longest chapter for this story so far. And I still managed to cut it off with a cliffhanger. XD

I slaved away allll morning to make this AND YOU'D BETTER APPRECIATE IT!

…Ahem. You know, if it's convenient. Please?

Disclaimer: See previous chapters. Status shamefully unchanged.

* * *

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter IV

"_Hello, Joey," Yugi's not really, but sort of look-a-like said, his garnet eyes sparkling with faint amusement._

"And just who are _you_?" Joey retorted. "What makes ya tink ya can follow Yugi around, ya demon?"

"I'm not a demon," the other man snapped, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm a Guardian."

"A guardian?"

"More like a Ghost, except I'm officially appointed and _much_ higher-ranked. I follow Yugi around because it's my _job_," he said haughtily.

Joey slowly lowered his fists as confusion overtook his anger. "Why would someone hire ya ta follow Yugi around?" he asked quizzically.

"You may not know it, Joey, but Yugi plays a crucial role in the survival of many realms of existence. It is a great burden, especially for one so little. It is a great honor that he has granted you his friendship."

Joey turned his head slightly to gaze in awe at his friend who was amazingly still asleep. He certainly didn't _look_ the part of a world-savior.

"So you're like his guardian angel?" Joey asked. Shit! Had he just tried to maul an angel? Well, he was going to Hell anyway…

"I'm not an angel," the other man stated simply. "From what I have heard of angels, they exist neither in Hell nor Purgatory, and, therefore, must exist in yet another realm if they do. My purpose, however, is more or less the same. I protect Yugi from any harm that might befall him."

Joey scowled. "Bullshit! I knew I couldn't trust ya! Yer a fuckin' liar!"

The man's wine-colored eyes widened in surprise. "Excuse me?"

"You expect me ta believe dat you've been protectin' him? Well den why don'tcha tell me just how many times Yugi's got beat up? Fifty? A hunderd? An' where da hell were _you_? On coffee break?"

The man levitated himself so that he was at eye level with the blonde, his eyes seeming to glow crimson with fury as he said, "Do you think I _enjoy_ standing by and watching an innocent boy get blackened and bruised? Do you not think that time and time again I have not _restrained_ myself from summoning forth all hellish powers to aid him? If I were not forbidden from it, believe me, I would."

Joey took a step back from the man who looked as if at any moment he might summon forth his "hellish powers" to smite him.

"So…I never caught yer name…" said Joey lightly, delicately deciding not to press the other issue any more.

The wrath died out of the other man's eyes and now he almost looked sad.

"I don't have a name."

"What'daya mean ya don't have a name," demanded Joey.

"It was…lost. A long time ago."

"Well _somebody's_ got to know it," replied Joey practically.

"Bakura might. But he's very spiteful and full of vengeance. Apparently my father killed his family or village or something to that effect."

Joey blinked. "Wait, Bakura? Demon guy wit crazy white hair and really pointy teeth?"

"Yes, that's—how do you know Bakura?" the nameless man said sharply, his eyes full of suspicion.

Joey wavered. "I…er, he wanted me ta sell my soul," he said, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck.

"Did you?" the man demanded, his gaze seeming to penetrate his mind.

"I mighta, yeah," Joey admitted reluctantly. "But not t'rough him," he added quickly.

"That might have something to do with it," the man said sagely.

"Sumtin' ta do wit what?" asked Joey.

"Why you can see me," he replied critically.

Something suddenly occurred to the blonde. "Can Yugi see you?" he wondered aloud.

"No," the other man replied almost wistfully. "He doesn't even know I exist. He not supposed to."

Joey remembered the affectionate way the man had talked to Yugi and the gentle, protective way he had held him.

"You…like Yugi a lot, don'cha," said Joey carefully, fully aware that he was treading on thin ice.

The man smiled wryly. "When someone becomes the crux of your entire existence, you tend to get attached to them, yes," he said sardonically.

"So—"

"Joey who are you talking to?" asked Yugi, sitting up and rubbing his eyes blearily. His nameless doppelganger was standing right between them, but he didn't even register in Yugi's line of vision.

"I'm, uh…jus' talkin' ta…myself," Joey lied, moving a little so he could see his friend around the other man. He seemed to be staring longingly at Yugi, almost as if he wanted _his_ presence acknowledged by the violet-eyed boy as well. But Joey wasn't prepared to introduce his best friend to a space in the air that had been following him around for a year.

Yugi studied him doubtfully and then pronounced, "I don't know if I should be more worried that you're talking to yourself or that you're up this early."

Instinctively, Joey looked for a clock. Eight o' clock. Yugi wasn't kidding, it _was_ early. And he still hadn't gotten a wink of sleep.

"Do you want some breakfast?" asked Yugi, smiling brightly.

"Yeah, sure," agreed Joey distractedly.

Yugi continued to smile as he sashayed into the kitchen.

'No voices this morning!' he thought cheerfully.

The nameless man trailed behind him, floating unconcernedly right though the swinging door, and Joey followed both of them in a slight state of bewilderment.

* * *

"Are pancakes okay?" asked Yugi anxiously as pulled some eggs and milk out of the refrigerator.

"Pancakes are awesome," assured Joey, realizing now how long it had been since he had last eaten. His stomach growled impatiently.

Yugi hummed to himself happily as he turned on the stove and began to heat the griddle. The nameless man settled himself on the edge of the kitchen sink, looking on at the proceedings with mild curiosity.

As the short boy reached over to get a spatula, his elbow brushed against the bottle of cooking oil he had left at the edge of the counter, spilling its contents all over the linoleum floor next to the oven.

Joey immediately jumped up, eager to help. "Here, do ya want me ta—"

"Don't worry about it, Joey. I've got it. There wasn't much left in the bottle anyway" said Yugi brightly as he tore some paper towels off the roll and knelt down to clean up the mess.

Joey sat back down reluctantly. "Funny how it managed to land all da way over by da oven," he mused aloud, balancing his chin on his hand. The bottle had certainly toppled at a weird angle. The man sitting on the sink suddenly seemed to look much more alert.

Yugi laughed good-naturedly. "Just my luck, right? At least it missed the rug…" 

He stood up and took a small step forward on the floor still slick with oil. Suddenly he was sliding, struggling to catch his balance with his arms flailing helplessly in the air.

Somehow Joey knew what had happened. His friend hadn't slipped on his own; from the sharp arch of his back, Joey could tell that he had been pushed. He could see what was _going_ to happen as well. In slow motion he could only watch in horror as his friend's head fell towards the corner of the counter. His flailing oil-covered arm that still held the soaked paper towels would try to stop his fall by grabbing onto the nearest surface, the stove. Joey sat riveted to his chair as the knob on the oven moved of its own accord, turning the flame up to full blast.

Yugi's nameless guardian could see this too, but he comprehended the peril of the situation in only a fraction of the time it had taken Joey. He had lunged as Yugi had begun to fall, and by the time Joey had figured out what was going on, the other man was already executing a fully formulated plan.

With inhuman speed, he grabbed Yugi around the waist from behind, gently steadying him and pulling him back a few steps so that with his other arm he could drag Joey out of his chair to the spot where he was standing behind Yugi. Then he pulled away from both of them, his eyes scanning the air for the enemy unseen.

Yugi took a couple deep gulps of air and then turned around to see Joey, staring at something with a puzzled look on his face.

"Thanks, Joey," he said, completely oblivious to his invisible savior. How could he know? All he knew was that someone had stopped him from falling and that Joey, the only other person in the room, was standing behind him. The connection was logical. His voice and eyes were filled with gratitude and admiration for his best friend.

Joey stared blankly at the other boy. He thought that _he_ had saved him. "But I didn't—" he started to explain, but he was cut off by a stern look from Yugi's real rescuer. Then he remembered. Yugi wasn't supposed to know about his Guardian.

Joey hurried to correct his blunder. "What I mean is, uh…it was nuthin', Yug'," he said, scratching the side of his face awkwardly.

From over Yugi's shoulder he could see the nameless man giving him a nod of approval.

Yugi threw his arms around the taller boy. "I'm going to make you the best batch of pancakes in the world!" he proclaimed, his voice muffled by Joey's chest.

Joey flushed. He didn't want to take credit for something he didn't do. 'Yug'," he said, gently pushing the smaller boy away, "Listen, you don't hafta—"

"Of course I don't have to, Joey. I _want_ to," Yugi explained, darting over to the sink to wash off the cooking oil that still coated his one arm.

Joey sighed dejectedly and sat down again, looking up just in time to see that the nameless man's garnet eyes once again shone with that look of desperate yearning.

"Did you find what it was that tried to hurt him?" the blonde asked him under his breath so Yugi wouldn't hear.

The man took no such trouble, replying in a loud, frustrated voice, "No. They're clever beasts, Ra damn them."

"Sorry, Joey," said Yugi over the sound of the running water. "Did you say something?

* * *

Joey went home and collapsed on the bed in sheer exhaustion, not bothering to take off the school uniform that he had been wearing for over twenty-four hours and unwilling to waste precious energy to even kick off his shoes.

By the time he woke up it was already sunset. It was too late to do anything but watch TV or do homework. Joey opted for the latter. It wasn't very often that he was in a homework-doing mood, and besides, from the sounds in the living room he could hear that the television had already been taken for the evening.

He sat on the floor against the side of his bed and dumped the contents of his backpack in front of him. A mass of old papers, gum wrappers, and pencils that he never could seem to find during class came tumbling out. Funny, he had thought for sure he had brought _something_ home to work on.

Then he groaned. He had left his physics workbook at Yugi's house! And there was no way his dad would let him go to the game shop after he had spent most of yesterday there without permission!

Joey gently turned the doorknob of his bedroom and peered into the living-room. It looked like his old man was asleep, but he never could really tell with him.

He closed the door again and changed out of his school uniform, putting on jeans, a t-shirt, and carrying his sneakers in one hand. He tiptoed to the kitchen, carefully avoiding the boards in the floor that he knew would squeak loudly, and smiled to himself as he opened the side door almost noiselessly. He had learned to keep the hinges well-oiled.

He stepped out into the biting cold and cautiously closed the main door behind him, leaving the screen door to close itself before slipping on his sneakers. He began to walk down the drive.

There was a loud "bang!" as a sudden gust of wind slammed the screen door shut.

'Shit.'

"JOEY!"

The blonde teenager ran, wishing now, as the cold wind whipped his face and bare arms, that he had thought to bring a jacket. Well, it was too late for that.

He kept running until he reached the business district, where he could get lost in the crowd of people making their way home from work. He doubted that his father would have followed him this far anyway, but it was better to be safe, for now at least. When he got home…well, that was a different matter.

Joey slowed down, catching his breath and ignoring the curious stares of the other pedestrians. He glanced around at the buildings, trying to figure out where he was and which way he should go to get to the game shop. Fortunately in Domino City there was one surefire way of telling exactly where you were.

He stopped at a corner and slowly spun around in a circle. People who had seen him as a mere curiosity before now looked at him as if he were a certifiable psycho. His eyes scanned the city's skyline, searching for…yes, there it was. It was hard to miss; the Kaiba Corp. Tower was the tallest building in the city.

The giant red and yellow KC was facing him and seemed to glow in the light of the setting sun. To get to Yugi's place he had to go towards it and make a left.

He joined the small crowd of people waiting for the 'Walk' signal, staring at the tower and half-consciously fingering the silver tag around his neck. He noticed what he was doing and quickly dropped his hand and shoved it into his pocket.

The small crowd was already moving, and he was last; he broke into an easy jog even though the timer next to the signal said that he'd make it across in plenty of time.

The car came out of nowhere.

* * *

Yugi hummed softly to himself as he neatly arranged a set of trading cards in the new display case. The chime on the door jingled as his grandfather walked in carrying his broom.

"Hey, Gramps!" Yugi greeted him pleasantly.

"Mmm…Yugi, you shouldn't leave your homework in the game shop," the gray-haired man said, picking up a workbook from the counter.

"Sorry," Yugi said, ducking his head apologetically. "I thought I'd put that away."

He took it and studied it, frowning. It didn't _look_ like his. This one was all beat up. He flipped it open and instantly recognized the handwriting.

"This is Joey's!" he exclaimed. "He must have left it here this morning. I'd better go give it back to him," he said, darting into the backroom to get his jacket.

"Yugi, it's getting dark," said his grandfather disapprovingly. "You know your mother doesn't like you wandering around after dark. Especially in _that_ part of town."

The remark stung. He knew that his family liked Joey and didn't mean to insinuate anything about bad him, but Joey was his best friend, and it still hurt.

"I'll be fine," he said airily, the chimes jingling again as he pushed open the door. He flashed his grandpa a reassuring smile. "I'll be right back. I promise."

* * *

Joey slid across the sidewalk, its rough surface grinding against the right side of his torso.

"Goddammit," he groaned, pushing himself up with one arm as the other clutched his trunk. "Watch where yer fucking goin', ya idiot!" he shouted after the car that was now long gone.

He made an attempt to get up, but soon abandoned it as a searing pain shot through the whole right side of his body. Instead, he opted to scoot himself so he was sitting at the edge of the gutter.

"Fucking bastards," he hissed. This time he was talking about the few other people on the sidewalk. Now that they had unfrozen from the shock of watching a young man fling himself on the sidewalk for dear life, they bustled hurriedly on their way, just as if nothing had happened at all. Rage burned inside of him. Just what kind of place was this?

"No it's okay, guys!" he shouted to no one and everyone. "I almost _died_ but it's cool! Jus' thought I'd save ya da trouble of askin'! Hope ya guys don't mind if I take off my shirt, but I gotta inspect dis wound; I tink I mighta broke a few ribs!" he shouted, his voice becoming muffled as he synced his actions with his words by pulling his blue and white t-shirt over his head.

He turned his chest toward the sidewalk slightly, into the light of the streetlamp that hung above him. The action sent another jolt of pain through his chest, making his eyes water. The sight of the large scrape elicited a small gasp from one woman in the quickly dwindling stream of people, but she turned her head, picked up her pace and moved on.

"No need ta concern yerself!" Joey shouted after her.

Studying the area for himself, he decided it looked worse than it felt. A long red burn ran from just underneath his armpit all the way to his hip on his right side, speckled with tiny flaps of broken skin that were oozing crimson droplets of blood. He made a face and pulled his shirt back on; there were no more people on the sidewalk to gross out, and there was no point in grossing himself out.

In the distance, a small headlight was piercing through the darkness surrounding him. Cars were scarce on the other side of the road, and on this side almost none had passed him. Now he took it upon himself to move out of the gutter. The irony of narrowly escaping being hit by one car only to be hit by another was not lost on him, but he didn't find the idea at all amusing.

Steadying himself on a fashionably antiqued lamppost nearby, he pulled himself to his feet, only to realize that he needn't have taken all the trouble; the vehicle coming toward him was only a small motorcycle.

'Maybe it's Tristan,' he thought hopefully. His brunette friend would be a welcome sight now, as he really needed someone to vent to, not to mention a slightly less painful way home than walking.

But last he checked Tristan didn't own a dark, billowing cloak.

* * *

Joey stood, still holding the lamppost and completely mesmerized by the motorcycle and its hooded rider, but his mind barely registered it when it came to a sudden stop just a few feet away from him.

Up close and in the light, he could see that the motorcycle seemed to be made of gold of the palest hue. Its rider, who had parked the bike and was now approaching him, was fully enshrouded by a dark violet cloak, the hood of which kept his face completely in shadow. The cloak had stopped billowing now that he was on the ground, and it hung down in a way that gave the impression that the man was floating rather than walking towards him.

Joey felt the sudden urge to run.

"Joseph Wheeler," the man stated, more than asked in a voice that made the usually courageous Brooklyn blonde want to sink to his knees and beg for mercy. If Death had a voice, he was sure that it would sound like this.

The man seemed to be waiting for him to say something.

"Y-yea. Dat's me. Joey Wheela'," he said laughing nervously.

The mad nodded. "Where's your body?" he asked.

Joey blinked. "Right here! …I think." He anxiously made a mental checklist of his vital signs. Breathing? Check. Pulse? Check. Solid? Check.

"Why can't people just accept it when they're dead? Is that too much to ask?" the man grumbled, pulling a hefty golden stick out of his belt. Joey was quick to note the two axes protruding from the ball at the top. His eyes grew wide in horror the man pressed something that made the end of the golden stick turn into a dagger, effectively making the weapon even more deadly.

Before he had time to react, the man made a sharp stab at his head.

Rooted to the spot, Joey gaped; the gold stick/double-axe/dagger thing appeared to be stuck in the air just in front of his nose, or at least the half of it that was still visible, anyway; the other half seemed to have magically disappeared before it hit him.

The man grunted with effort as he tried to pull the stick downward. "God…damn…it!" he managed to spit out from between clenched teeth as he tried to pull the rod out of the grip of the invisible force that was holding it in place. "Why…is it…being…so…STUBBORN?"

As he shouted the last word, the force on the other side seemed to give way, and there was a loud 'KRCSSSKT,' like the sound of tearing fabric. The rod tumbled to the ground with a loud clatter, and the man went flying backwards.

"Oww. Dammit," he groaned in an almost uncharacteristically non-threatening manner from his sprawled position on the sidewalk. The man sat up, letting the hood of the violet cloak fall from his head as he shook his pale blonde hair back into place.

Joey stared. The man couldn't have been older than himself; in fact, he might have been a year or two younger, judging from his appearance!

Seeing that the other boy was struggling to get back to his feet, Joey half-consciously stretched out his arm to help him up. His silent offer was accepted, if somewhat reluctantly, and the boy reached out a well-tanned hand to let himself be pulled up.

"Thanks," he muttered, dusting off his cloak, which Joey could now see was a darker shade of violet than his eyes. "You'd better hurry up before it closes," he said, bending over to pick up his temporarily abandoned rod from the sidewalk.

"What?" asked Joey, still stunned by chaos in his mind that the tan blonde had created.

"Just go through the rift," the boy said, pointing to a place in the air that made the rest of the world look slightly distorted, sort of like a crack in the mirror. Joey realized that the top of the "rift" came just up to his nose, the same spot where the rod had been stuck.

"But…why?" asked Joey.

The boy sighed as if this were a question he was tired of answering. "You're dead. Get over it. This is your portal to the afterlife."

Joey felt the blood drain from his face. "Hold up! Dere must be some kinda mistake here. Ya see, I'm alive!"

"Yeah, yeah, that's what they all say."

"No, ya don't understand…" Joey protested.

"Look, I don't have time for this," the tanned boy said impatiently. The rift was shrinking, and with a swift push, he shoved the other boy in.

Joey suddenly felt as if he was literally being shredded to pieces. And in a way he was. There was a sickening ripping sound as his soul was torn from his body and was pulled into the rift.

"Joey!" called the voice of a dulcet tenor.

A short boy with his hair in tri-colored spikes stopped short, gasping for air.

He watched as his friend crumpled to the ground, his soulless eyes staring up into nothingness and his mouth hanging open in a silent but resounding scream.

The thin dog-eared physics workbook in Yugi's hand fell to the ground and was blown into the wind. He fell to his knees next to his friend, hot tears streaming down his face as he desperately shouted his name again and again in vain. The invisible hovering sprit at his side remained silent in shock and inward contemplation.

The hushed words of the boy known as Death as he sat on his motorcycle summed up the thoughts of everyone present.

"God damn it."


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Notes:

Ummm...hi. So...how've you been? Yeah, I know, another late update. I've actually had this chapter for a while, but I didn't like it and it has a lot of technical stuff that I needed to sort out to keep future chapters consistent, like my version of the geography of Hell and stuff. I had to draw pictures and everything! And then I had to rewrite half of it. But I also got a lot of next chapter written in the process, so hopefully that will be up soon. Thank you to all my loyal readers for staying with me!

So, plenty of minor characters who you may or may not remember appear in this chapter. Mako Tsunami, Rex Raptor, Johnson from the Big 5, and the not-so-minor Duke Devlin. I'm pretty sure all of them act out of character. Duke seems mildly attracted to Joey for whatever reason and Johnson has bi-polar apparently. He also seems to be a cross between Kaiba and Bakura, probably stemming from my sadness because they don't appear in this chapter either. Don't worry, next chapter they will make their triumphant return with Ryou! Yay!

Must go study for my AP exams now. If I don't update for a few months, then it's safe to assume that it was Suicide by Testing.

Disclaimer: I would say that I owned everything, but then Hell's Legal Department would come after me. And I do not want to deal with Johnson's creepy child-molester leer. Was anybody else bothered by the way he was looking at Joey during their duel?

BREAK

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter V

Down…down…down… backwards into a seemingly endless pit of darkness. He was choking on the darkness, drowning in oblivion. Drowning…where was the sound of rushing water coming from? In vain he groped for the slit of light that had used to be his reality, but he had fallen out of its reach long before he had even realized he was falling.

What had happened? The last thing he could remember that boy, the tan blonde one with the crazy gold stick. He had insisted that he was dead and then shoved him into this hole in the air. He had felt himself being torn apart, desperately trying to cling to something, he didn't know what. A voice calling his name. And after that there was only darkness and falling…falling…

His falling ended with a sudden "WHUMP!" as his body collided with the stone floor of what seemed to be a dimly lit cave.

"Oww…" he groaned. He pushed himself up and shook his head. He seemed to be sitting in a crowd of people, most of them looking just as dazed as he was. "Where—?"

"All right, we can fit one more. Hurry up, you."

Joey's shook his head again, trying to adjust his eyes to the dim light. He squinted upward toward the direction of the voice.

A bare-chested, dark-skinned man was standing over him. "I said to hurry up," he growled, jerking his thumb backwards towards what looked like a long boat packed with people.

Joey scrambled to his feet, two splotches of a violent red gracing his cheekbones. "Where--?"

"Do you have your fare?" the man asked, tossing his black hair as he stared at Joey incredulously.

"What?" asked Joey, bewildered.

"Your fare. Coins, jewelry, anything like that."

"Uh…yeah." Joey hastily dug into his pockets and pulled out some odd change. "Is that good?" he asked, though he wasn't sure what he was paying the man for.

The man grunted at the meager offering, but accepted it and put it in a pouch by his side. "Get in," he said, gesturing to the boatload of eerily quiet people.

Joey obediently squeezed into the only open space between a plump middle-aged woman and a frightened looking child. "Where--?" he tried to ask again, but the man was already picking his way through a path of jagged rocks to the middle of the boat. Joey stared at the water swirling violently beneath them. It was dark, almost violet, and seemed unnaturally thick.

"Ready, Mako?" a voice of a man called from shore. Joey turned to look, but his view was blocked by the other passengers of the boat.

He saw the first man, "Mako," give a thumbs up from the middle seat before taking up both oars and bracing them. He was going to row this thing all the way across by himself? He had to be crazy! With a small dip and a splash, they were gently pushed into the water. The man began to row.

For one man, he went fast. Joey could almost feel the power of his muscles as they pulled the oars and drove them forward against the temperamental violet water. It slapped the side of the boat irritably, threatening to overturn them, but Mako seemed unperturbed and rowed steadily onward. He hadn't even broken a sweat.

On each side he could see other boats, some full of people like theirs, and others going the other way, empty. Each of them had a single rower rigorously toiling against the water that seemed to stretch before them endlessly.

Joey sighed. It looked like it was going to be a long ride.

BREAK

"Welcome to Purgatory," said a bland male voice as Joey stumbled out of the boat and sprawled onto the rocks of the shore. He looked up to see a teenage boy who wasn't much taller than Yugi. Messy tufts of dirt brown hair peeked out from under his grayish-purple skullcap and matching brown eyes regarded him with annoyance.

"Helps to get off the ground," the boy said dryly.

Joey flushed angrily and staggered to his feet.

The boy shoved a piece of folded paper at his chest. "Take a pamphlet, stand in line, and enjoy your stay in Purgatory."

"Thanks, er…Rex," said Joey, reading off of the silver tag on the boy's chest. "But I'm not dead."

"Of course you're not dead," Rex snapped. "You're only in the freaking afterlife, lamebrain," he huffed before moving on to another person. "Welcome to Purgatory…"

"But I'm not dead…" he said to himself quietly. He glanced at the dingy gray pamphlet in his hand. It looked like the kind that counselors handed out at school, the ones that looked as if they hadn't changed since the school opened in the fifties. 'Planning Your Life after High School,' or something stupid like that. Only this one was entitled, 'Making the Most of Your Afterlife: Why Purgatory is the Choice for You.'

"Looks rather lackluster, don't you think?" asked a husky voice next to his ear.

Joey jumped and sharply turned his head, putting him almost nose to nose with a bespectacled man. The man pulled back, chuckling lightly, and Joey could see that he was tall with angular features and sharp gray eyes. He was probably in his mid-thirties. He wore a smart slate gray suit with a silky banana yellow tie and carried a black leather briefcase.

"Allow me to introduce myself. I'm known as Johnson, and I work for the legal department of Hell. Ah, ah, ah! I see you backing away. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, 'Now why would a nice boy like me want to spend my afterlife in _Hell _of all places?' am I right? Well…what did you say your name was again?"

"Joey," Joey replied, though he couldn't remember having told the man his name at all.

"Well, Joey, I'm here to tell you that Hell is not what you think it is. In fact, why don't we step into my office and I'll give you a free quote on your soul, with absolutely no obligation!"

"But I—"

"No 'but's.' Did you have a nice journey across the River Styx?" **(1)**

The man slung his arm amiably over Joey's shoulder and began to guide him past the lines of people to a massive iron gate guarded by two equally massive men. As they weaved through the crowd, Joey could see that all around bored representatives of Purgatory were handing out pamphlets while animated and sometimes exotically dressed spokespeople for Hell boldly approached select targets. Strangely enough, Purgatory seemed to be doing the better business; most people heard the word "Hell" and suddenly couldn't get far enough away.

The two hulks of man-flesh guarding the iron gate spared Johnson a cool nod and ignored Joey. It didn't matter to him, though. Joey's thoughts were occupied elsewhere. There were words wrought in iron at the top of the gate, and he was struggling to read them.

"Hey, what does 'Las-cia-te og-ne—' **(2)**

Johnson laughed airily. "Just a little joke by an Italian poet. Pay no heed to it. Come along."

Joey continued to hang back, however, hovering indecisively just outside the gate. Some instinct was holding him back. It was the same gut-feeling he often got just before being ambushed in a dark alleyway.

"I want ta see Kaiba," he said impulsively. He clutched the tag around his throat as though he was afraid that it would disappear. Kaiba would know what to do. They might not like each other very much, but Kaiba played by the rules, and there had to be _something_ in the rules about being sent here while you were still alive.

"I have his card," he added as an afterthought, yanking the chain from his neck and holding it aloft so the other man could see it.

Johnson reached a hand out towards it, frowning, but Joey warily pulled it out of his reach. The older man caught his wrist and wrenched it towards him so he could read the small inscription.

"Now where did you get this?" he asked in a hushed voice.

"None a' yer business," retorted Joey, jerking his wrist away so he could slip the chain back over his neck possessively.

"It _is_ my business." Johnson said, still frowning. "You must already have a contract." He pushed his glasses higher up on the bridge of his nose and folded his arms over his chest, regarding Joey with strong disapproval. "Well, who's it with? Hell or Purgatory? Or someone else? It's still wrong; you should've been sent directly where your debt was due, not to the Entrance," he muttered, more to himself than to the blonde teenager opposite him.

Joey tried not to fidget under the lawyer's uncomfortable gaze. The older man furrowed his brow and pursed his lips into a grim line. Joey jammed his hands into his pockets to stop them from nervously tapping the side of his leg and stared coolly off into the distance.

"Is the system back up? Let me see if I can pull up the Book." Joey jerked his head to see that Johnson was talking to one of the guards as he pressed the 'power' button on a computer sitting on a podium outside the gate.

The soft glow of the screen reflected on his glasses as his fingers began to type. "Contracts…Purgatory…Seto Kaiba…none…all right, contracts, Hell, Seto Kaiba…none…hmm…contracts, any, Seto Kaiba…"

Joey curiously drew closer to the monitor. On the screen was a single file. "Contract Type: Specialist, Purgatory. Term: 5 (flexible). Damned/Condemned: Kaiba, Seto. Demon/Broker: Bakura. Date: 12 May 1990."

Bits and pieces of random information began to fall together like puzzle pieces in Joey's mind. Kaiba was born in 1980. He had made a contract for Purgatory in 1990. He had only been ten years-old! He had sold to Bakura. That would explain their odd relationship. But didn't Bakura work for Hell? Joey thought about it. Bakura had said that he was a freelance agent and that his contract with Hell was only temporary. Maybe he had used to work for Purgatory?

"Nothing! Bless it!" Johnson snapped, exiting the window. Joey was pulled back to reality with a start.

"Full name," the lawyer barked irritably at him.

"Joseph Wheela'," Joey replied promptly before he could stop himself.

"Spell it."

"J-O-S—"

"No, your last name!"

"W-H-E-E-L-E-R."

"That's what I thought," the man grumbled. "You need to get rid of that idiotic accent."

Joey jutted out his jaw but said nothing. He could hardly believe that this was the same man who had been beaming at him like an old friend just a few minutes ago.

"Nothing! _Beatus id_!" Johnson shouted, slamming his hand on the keyboard. "There's a blessed glitch in the system again!" He slammed his hand down again, and the computer beeped and whirred in protest. The screen went black.

"Bless it!" the man screeched. Then he took a deep breath and yanked off his glasses, polishing them with the sleeve of his dark gray coat. "Duke," he said calmly as he replaced his glasses.

"Neh?"

"Duke." Johnson repeated the name with unveiled displeasure. "We're going to have to see him. Follow me."

The man turned to leave the gateway, but Joey didn't budge.

"What are you afraid of?" Johnson snapped as he realized that he was walking alone. "It's a glitch in the system and we need to see Technology about it. If you don't belong here we can't hold you."

A gleam of hope passed before his eyes. If he didn't belong here…all he had to do was see this "Duke" person and explain that he wasn't dead and they would send him back.

Joey's whole face brightened and a familiar jaunty swagger returned to his step as he followed the man through the ominous iron gate.

BREAK

"Stay close," the lawyer warned as the silver doors in front of him slid open.

Of all of the possible conceptions of Hell that Joey had thought of on the elevator ride down, none of them even came close to this.

A pounding drum and bass line filled his ears and vibrated through his entire body. Layered on top of it were the bright pulses of a keyboard and the wailing of an electric guitar, and further layered upon that was the voice of a man screaming incomprehensible lyrics into a microphone. As indecipherable as his words were, however, it didn't take a genius to figure out that they were both obscene and provocative.

Scantily clad men and women swarmed before him in the flashing bursts of colored lights, jumping, shouting, dancing, and smiling, all of them smiling. Johnson plunged fearlessly into the sea of people, and, remembering the lawyer's instruction, Joey was hasty to follow before the gap closed.

The atmosphere was intoxicating. It was like a nightclub on steroids.

"Sorry. 'cuse me. Shit! Sorry, accident!" He ducked and dodged flailing limbs, desperately trying to catch sight of the unremarkable man in a gray suit through the ocean of metallic sparkles and tight gleaming leather that clung to every surrounding form. He pushed his way through them, darting forward in short bursts and bouncing on his tiptoes to try to see over all of the smiling faces.

His head was swimming. The brilliant strobe lights flashed rapidly, making the world seem to go frame by frame. One second his quarry was there in front of him and the next he was nowhere to be seen. He looked around helplessly. There! For an instant the flashing light revealed to him the place where the crowd ended! He shoved his way forward as fast as he could, determined not to lose sight of the other side.

He stumbled and sprawled on the hard floor at the tall lawyer's feet. He had made it. His mouth was parched, his head was reeling, and his pulse was racing out of control.

"How was your first taste of Hell?" asked Johnson as the blonde teenager struggled to get to his feet. "Exhilarating?"

Joey nodded. "Y-yeah," he croaked.

An odd smile that reminded him of Bakura touched the corner of the man's lips. "Good."

Joey swayed and staggered drunkenly as he followed the man down a dimly lit stone passageway, straining to adjust his eyes to the soft, consistent light. Forms bustled past on either side of them with brisk business-like steps.

He had hardly regained his bearings when Johnson stopped short, nearly sending the teenager toppling over himself once again.

Johnson seemed to be looking for something. His hands ran over the irregular gray stones of the wall.

"What—"

"There it is," announced Johnson with a touch of relief. He pulled what looked like a gold credit card out of his pocket and inserted it into a slot in the wall.

"We're taking a shortcut to the Inner Sanctum," Johnson explained, straightening his tie. "A journey to the very center of Hell usually takes several months. Fortunately, I have clearance for direct access."

With the tremendous grating of stone on stone, the wall parted, giving way to another elevator. They stepped inside. As the doors closed, Joey noticed that this elevator had not one, but eight buttons, each one labeled with a symbol except for the last, which was blank. It was this last one that Johnson pressed, plunging them downward at a reckless speed. Joey guessed that it must be for the "Inner Sanctum."

"What'der da other buttons for?" Joey asked.

"They represent the divisions of Hell. Currently we're using the method popularly known as the Seven Deadly Sins. Don't expect it to last, though; Satan's thinking about remodeling to the eighteen levels of Diyu **(3)**. It starts with Lust. We just went through part of that. As you might have guessed, it's a good advertisement. Gets the blood pumping. As you go on, the sins and their punishments are supposed to become progressively worse and worse. So next comes Gluttony, then Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and, finally, Pride."

The elevator lurched to a stop and the doors opened to reveal a dark corridor permeated with the sound of silence. Johnson stepped forward first, his footsteps echoing eerily in the dim passageway. Joey scurried after him, and he heard the elevator doors close behind him with a metallic click.

"Where are we?" he breathed in awe, as he followed the older man down the short passageway. It opened into a colossal expanse of gold and marble. The massive circular room was stacked level upon level so high upwards that even when he craned his neck, Joey couldn't see the top. It was as if someone had sliced open a hive of industry. People of all shapes, sizes, and colors, dressed in every sort of clothing imaginable bustled about, talking and carrying stacks of papers or briefcases. Phones rang, computers hummed and whirred, and announcements echoed over the P.A. system, all in an almost unbelievable magnitude.

"The Atrium," Johnson replied crisply. "The Headquarters of Hell. You should be honored. Most of _your_ type never even lay eyes on this place."

Joey whistled lowly in appreciation, ignoring, for the moment, the insult.

With long strides the lawyer began to make his way across the room with Joey quickly at his heels. They approached a massive door wrought entirely of gold and encrusted with what literally must have been thousands of diamonds that seemed to have been tossed on as a careless afterthought.

Johnson once again whipped out his card and slid it into a slot that would have taken Joey days to find, his eyes were so dazzled by the glittering jewels. The door opened reluctantly and they marched on.

The hallways here were small and narrow, twisting and turning sharply and seeming, Joey thought, to be taking them ever so slowly even further downward. The walls that surrounded them were composed of large slabs of polished black stone. Silver doors lined either side of the constricted hall, and they rushed by them, making the whole corridor seem to Joey like a blur of black and silver.

His breaths were coming hard and fast; it felt as if someone had their hands around his throat and was slowly squeezing. The walls seemed to be closing in on him at an alarming rate.

But just as soon as he felt that he was going to scream, the hallway changed. It seemed to open up a little. It gradually widened enough so that a small tank could pass through with ease. Suddenly he could breathe again.

Johnson slowed their vigorous pace, his eyes scanning the doors on either side that were now more distantly and irregularly spaced. It was one of these that Johnson pushed open, letting light flood into the darkened passageway.

BREAK

"Well? What do you want Johnson? Forgotten your password again?"

The voice came from behind a large flat-screen computer monitor that was sitting on a glass-partitioned desk. It was the voice of a young man, self-assured and arrogant, and the way he said his words clearly meant to convey to the lawyer the message, "You couldn't do a damn thing without _my_ help. Face it, you're outdated, you old geezer."

From what Joey could see, the carefully aimed tone had hit its mark. Johnson clenched his hands into fists and grated his teeth. Joey was beginning to see why the other man had been so reluctant to come here.

Suddenly, the older man relaxed and even smiled. He smoothed out his yellow tie and then said pleasantly, "Something's wrong with your system."

"_Excuse me?_" A head appeared from behind the screen, its startling, catlike emerald eyes regarding the lawyer narrowly. The pale, angular features in which the eyes were set provided a sharp contrast with the young man's raven-colored hair that was swept up in a sideways ponytail, the bangs of which were kept out of his eyes by a red and black band stretched across his forehead.

This must be "Duke." If Joey hadn't been so startled, he probably would have laughed or maybe cried. _This_ was the guy they had come so far to see? _He_ was supposed to be the one who was going to fix his problem?

The man's vivid green eyes flicked from Johnson to Joey with mild curiosity. He twirled one of his inky bangs around his finger, frowning perplexedly as he studied him. Joey stared back, unabashed. This guy didn't look like he could handle anything more complicated than serving drinks at a gay biker bar.

The man stood up from behind the computer and fully confirmed Joey's preconception as he walked around the glass desk. Heeled black boots, tight black leather pants and an open red vest graced his thin, rather effeminate, figure. And it was just a vest. No shirt underneath.

Joey choked back an odd combination of laughter and disgust. Fortunately, the man seemed to take the strangled noise he emitted from the back of his throat as a compliment. His eyes lingered on Joey for a few more seconds before reluctantly returning to Johnson.

"I suppose _this_—," he gestured to Joey, "— is the glitch?"

"Exactly," replied the other man. "He's missing from your system. He made a contract, but, it's not there."

"Are you sure you even entered it in?" Duke asked doubtfully. "Give me the hard copy."

"I don't have it. I didn't make it."

Duke frowned. "Then who did?" he asked, picking up the telephone on his desk. It was lipstick red, to match his vest.

Johnson smirked faintly. "Kaiba."

Duke stared at him for a few seconds and then laughed, dropping the phone back on its hook. "Well, that explains why it's not in my system; it doesn't _exist_. The day that Kaiba decides to reduce himself to field work is the day that a chorus of angels descends upon Hell to escort Lucifer to—"

"Well you'd better Satan's office then. Unless you have a better way of explaining _this_." Without warning, the lawyer grabbed the chain around Joey's neck and wrenched it towards Duke.

"Hey! Let go, ya jerk!" Joey yelped in protest.

Neither of the men paid any attention to him. Duke fingered the small silver tag and furrowed his brow.

"How…?"

He let the necklace fall and slid back behind his desk.

"It's genuine, then?" asked Johnson gloatingly.

"Has to be," replied Duke, typing furiously. "They don't have the technology to make those sort of code markings…yet. Bless it! I just fixed it! Where is it?" He stared long and hard at Joey.

"No, he couldn't," he murmured, dismissing some idea. "Besides, Kaiba wouldn't send some dumb kid to do his dirty work."

Joey scowled.

"Looks like we're going to have to do this manually," he said, disappearing into a connecting room before returning with a large cardboard box. He dumped its contents on the floor. "I would usually just tell you to go back to the Legal Department for this, but…if I can find it…" he muttered, picking up random objects from the floor. He would study each one for a fraction of a second before tossing it back into the box. Finally, he seemed to find what he was looking for.

"Here we are," he proclaimed, holding aloft a square-ish plastic thing. It looked like one of the blood-sampling devices that Yugi's grandpa used to monitor his blood sugar. Joey instinctively crossed his arms; his body knew what the device was for, even if his mind hadn't made the connection.

"Your finger, please," Duke requested in the manner of a magician about to perform an amazing trick. Reluctantly, Joey held out his index finger. There was a sharp prick and then the little machine began to whirr.

"Now we just hook this up…"said Duke, suiting actions to words as he began to fiddle around with a different computer.

"Just what is _'this'_?" demanded Johnson.

"_This_ is a blood analyzer. It reads the blood and then searches the contract archive while cross-referencing with the Blood Bank. I've been wanting an excuse to test it."

"But if I'm not in da system…" Joey began.

"Doesn't matter. This works on a different system with a different database. Problems in one don't affect the other. Joseph, is it? Joseph Wheeler?"

He moved his head and Joey could see that the entirety of his fateful contract had been summoned onto the computer screen.

"All right," said Duke. "He's got a one-term in Hell. Satan bless! It's even got Kaiba's signature!"

Johnson frowned, leaning over to see the document on the screen. "So where do we put him?"

Duke shrugged. "He should have just been sent there. It's not my problem. Though, if he needs somewhere to go, _I_ could always use—"

"I'm right here!" Joey interrupted angrily. "Quit talkin' about me like I don' exist! Can't ya just _ask_ me where I wanna go?"

"No, he specifies," replied Johnson. He read, "'The level closest to the entrance of Hell, that is, the level bordering on Purgatory at the time of the drafting of this contract, will be designated as the area to receive and hold the damned for his term. Any changes in Hell's system of organization must be processed with the drafter of this contract, Seto Kaiba, and a new station for the damned will be approved by aforesaid drafter. Any attempt to hold the damned elsewhere or to trick, bribe, or otherwise persuade the damned by any means that he should go elsewhere will null and void this contract.'"

"Tricky bastard," hissed Duke.

"He should be," replied Johnson, straightening his tie. "He had to put up with me as his company lawyer."

"What?" demanded Joey. "Nevermind! I don't even belong here! Da point is dat I'm not s'pposed ta go ta any part 'a Hell yet, no matta _what _da contract says!"

The two men continued to ignore him. "Well, we've done our part," Duke said, satisfied. "What system are we using? The Seven Sins? That would put him in…Lust." The emerald-eyed man picked up his vibrant red phone and dialed a number. "Hello, Mai? I've got a present for you. And you won't believe who drafted his contract…"

BREAK

**(1)** The River Styx- Greek mythology. It is the river that forms the boundary between Earth and the Underworld. Unlike the popular Christian interpretation, I chose to use it as part of the passage to the afterlife, not just to Hell. Charon would ferry souls across for a small fee. Some say that Charon ferried people across the Acheron, but I like the Styx better. XD

**(2)**'Lasciate ogne…'- The start of the infamous phrase from Dante's _Inferno_, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

**(3)** Diyu- The eighteen levels of Hell based on Chinese mythology. Very painful levels, I might add. Some personal favorites: the Chamber of Oil Cauldrons, the Chamber of Dismemberment by Chariot, and the Chamber of Eye-gouging (for all you peeping Toms).


	6. Chapter 6

Author's Notes: Guesswhat!Guesswhat!Guesswhat! Finals are over! School is out for summer, baby! –happydance- And to celebrate, I decided to update! You shall share my joy! I command it!

So, when we left off Joey was being sent to Lust because Kaiba specified in his contract that he was to be put in the easiest level of Hell. Most generous of him. Now, it may appear at the beginning of this chapter that Joey harbors some feeling for Mai. This is slightly true because at this point in time Joey is still under the (false) impression that he is completely straight. Oh, silly Joey! Anyway, if you stick around for a bit, you will find some Seto/Joey interaction in this chapter even if Joey is oblivious and Kaiba insists that it doesn't exist. Don't be fooled by them. It's there. I should know; I wrote it in.

Thank you to all of my reviewers! I love you! I almost have a quarter of a hundred reviews! Squee!

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! I also don't own Playboy or anything associated with it. I think I've made about two references to it, but I just wanted to make sure that you know that I don't own it. I'm not Hugh Hefner. Really. No, I mean, _really_. I don't even know if I spelled his name right.

* * *

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter VI

Joey tried hard not to gape too idiotically at the voluptuous woman sitting across the desk from him. Thick glossy waves of carefully arranged blonde hair tumbled over her bare shoulders and smoldering violet eyes studied him from behind long dark lashes.

Maybe, Joey decided, Hell wasn't so bad after all.

Of course he had recognized her instantly; who wouldn't recognize Oscar-nominated supermodel and Honorary Playmate Mai Valentine? She had died only three years ago, and the tragic images of the smoking wreck of her little red Corvette twisted around that lamppost had not yet receded from the world's mind. She had held everything in the palm of her hand; she had become the modern embodiment of the American Dream, and then…it was over, all over. And here she was now, running her own section of Hell and sitting across a desk from Joey Wheeler, whose biggest achievement in life had been not flunking his freshmen year.

"Well, Joseph…"

"J-Joey," he stuttered stupidly.

She raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. "Well, _Joseph_, I really don't know _what_ Duke was thinking when he sent you to me. Not that I can do anything about it as Duke happens to be the Devil's special pet…" She leaned back in her chair and swung her legs up so that her violet stiletto boots were perched daintily on the edge of her desk. Her lips twisted into a cruel smile. "Well, at least he is for now…we'll see…Anyway, the point is that I'm stuck with you, and I really don't have any openings. You see my problem, hun'? I don't know what to do with you."

Joey opened his mouth, about to involuntarily suggest something along the lines of "make me your personal slave" when the telephone rang.

"Lust…What?...Well isn't that just…Put him on now!...Hello? Congratulations, you've been demoted. Good-bye." She slammed the phone down on its hook and leveled her gaze at Joey.

"Apparently we _do_ have an opening. I suppose you're pretty enough. Come with me," she directed, standing up and pulling a short purple jacket over her white corset top. She flung the door open and grandly stepped into the hallway. Joey followed, frowning as he contemplated his masculinity. He wasn't really "pretty," was he?

* * *

Joey looked around in awe. They seemed to be in some sort of dressing room. Garments that had been dipped in sequins and glitter, gleaming leather, and brightly colored feather boas lined the enormous walls.

"Here."

Joey stumbled backwards as something heavy hit his chest.

"Well, put them on," Mai said impatiently.

He looked down at the load in his arms and saw that it was nothing more than a pair of pants. A very heavy and ridiculously gaudy pair of sparkling gold pants, but a pair of pants nonetheless. Staring at them, Joey realized that they were probably at least a few sizes too small for his liking.

"What are you waiting for?" the imposing blonde woman snapped.

"I don't tink dey're gonna fit…"

"You're not here to think. Just put them on."

Joey flushed. "What, here?"

She huffed and turned her back on him, muttering darkly under her breath.

"Y'know, dey'res no way in Hell—"

"In Hell there's always a way. Remember that. Are you done yet?"

Joey sighed as he pulled off his jeans. An image of Tristan taunted his mind, smirking playfully and mouthing the word "owned."

"Aw, shut up. What'da _you_ know?" Joey muttered as he struggled with the zipper. The image faded, and Joey was almost sad to see it go. How long had it been since he had seen his friends? How long had he been down here? He was forgetting his life in the real world. It seemed as if the afterlife was all that he had ever known.

"Can't ferget, can't, can't, can't!" he whispered determinedly.

"Are you crying?"

Joey's head jerked up, and he automatically wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. Mai was staring right at him.

"Oughta be illegal ta make pants dis tight!" he explained shakily.

She looked doubtful. Joey adjusted his waistband self-consciously. Stupid to call it a waistband, really. It didn't seem to come anywhere near his waist.

"—like that."

He suddenly realized that Mai had been talking. "What?"

The blonde woman frowned disapprovingly. "I said, you can't go out like that."

Salvation. A wave of relief washed over him. Now that he was wearing them, she could finally understand—

"Take off silly t-shirt! You look like an idiot."

--or not. With a heavy heart Joey pulled the t-shirt up over his head. He liked this t-shirt; it had always been one of his favorites. It probably looked disgusting now, though. The scrape on his side after he had hit the sidewalk had been oozing blood.

Sure enough, as he held the shirt away from him he could see that it had been ruined. Half-consciously, he touched the side of his chest. Odd, he couldn't feel anything. He looked down. The skin was clean and new, unmarred by the hideous wound that should have been there. He looked at the shirt again and then back at himself. Bloody, not bloody.

"Are you going to stand there all day? I'm a busy woman here!"

Joey reluctantly let the shirt drop to the floor and turned around.

Mai ran an eye over him critically. "You'll do. Now come _on_!" She huffed as she dragged him down yet another passageway.

There was a door at the end of the hall. Mai took a deep breath and flung it open. A shockwave of sound sent Joey tumbling backwards.

* * *

"This is it!" Mai shouted over the ear-bursting decibels of music.

"What?" Joey shouted back, his hands futilely covering his ears.

"I said, this is it!"

Joey tried to let his eyes get used to the blinding colored strobe lights. He remembered this place. Johnson had taken his through here when they had first entered Hell. The music seemed a lot louder than he had remembered it, though. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that they were standing next to a pair of amplifiers.

Mai was motioning at him frantically. Her mouth was moving, but he couldn't hear anything.

"What?"

"—to go…errands! Bye!"

"But what do I do?" Joey yelled at the top of his lungs.

Mai mimed jumping into the pit of dancers. Joey jumped.

"Now what?" he shouted, but she had already turned and left.

He looked uneasily around him. There were now people surrounding him on every side, all as scantily clad as he was, smiling and dancing and watching him out of the corners of their eyes. He smiled back weakly. He wasn't so sure that he wanted to be here.

He tried to move, but he seemed rooted to the spot. He tried to pick up his foot, but it felt as if someone had duct taped it to the floor. All around him the lights flashed, the head-splitting music played, and smiling people danced. And suddenly he wanted to dance, too. Not that he had ever done this kind of dancing in his life. He had seen people do it, though; it didn't look that hard. His body began to pulse to the music. His muscles seemed to be full of pent up energy that he didn't know he had, and he needed to get rid of it. Suddenly his feet could move again, and he began to use them, mimicking the motions of the people around him. His face broke into a broad smile. This was easy.

Of course, this was supposed to be the easiest level of Hell, right? Why had he ever thought that Hell would be terrible? Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves as much as he was. It was like a giant party. After all, all they had to do was dance and smile and put on a good show for the people coming through. What's her name would probably love it.

Joey froze mentally, though his body continued to move and the smile remained plastered on his face. What _was_ her name? The one with the short brown hair and…green eyes? No, blue, wasn't it? It started with a "T." T-T-T-Tabitha? Tiffany? Tamika?

He began to panic, but only his fearful brown eyes showed it. What was her name? Why couldn't he remember? There had been…Yuri and…Christian and…Tara? And his sister…Felicity? Goddammit! He couldn't even remember his own sister?

Suddenly a new wave of terror washed over him. _What was his name?_ It started with "J." Or was it "G"?

He couldn't think! What was his name? He had to get out of here! Why was it so loud? Weaving through the crowd, he blindly and frantically danced his way away from the music. He had to be able to hear himself think! Jacob? Justin? This was an emergency! Jeremy, James, Gerald…

"Oof!" He stumbled backwards against something that wasn't moving like everyone else. It caught him. He looked up. "Hey, I know you!"

* * *

"_Hey, I know you_!"

Seto Kaiba looked down at the flaxen-haired, bare-chested youth whose back was pressed against his right arm. Normally he would have immediately declined having any previous association with _anyone_ in Lust, but the boy did look somehow familiar…

He did a quick search of his internal database. Blonde, teenage _(I do know ya, right? Right? Hey, you payin' attention?_), and decidedly annoying. Who did he know like that?

"Wheeler," he said crisply. "Joey Wheeler." He pulled his arm away, jerking the blonde to his feet.

"Jo-ey? Hey, dat's my name! Jo-ey. Joey." He said the name slowly, letting it roll over his tongue as if it were a foreign word. He was dancing like the others now, but his brown eyes were bright with excitement. "And yer…yer…"

"Kaiba."

"Yeah, Kaiba. Wait, Kaiba?" His eyes widened in recognition and his voice became low as he moved closer. "Look, man, ya gotta help me."

Kaiba looked at him doubtfully. He was smiling, but his eyes were now filled with desperation.

"It's Hell. I warned you, didn't I?" He took a step forward. He had to go confront Duke. That was what he had come down here for. This little game of "Kill Kaiba's System" had really gone on for long enough.

Joey swiftly moved to block his path, grabbing the collar of his trench coat with both hands, his hips rocking provocatively from side to side with the beat of the music. "Ya don't understand, Kaiba. I'm goin' _crazy_."

"Crazy…" His throat was dry. Why was it so damn hot in here?

"Yeah…you know, _insane_…" He put a hand on his shoulder and leaned closer. "Ya gotta help me."

Kaiba shook him off gently. "I can't—"

Joey slipped behind him and balanced on his tiptoes, steadying himself with one hand on each of his shoulders. He could feel his hot breath coming in short bursts against the side of his neck. "I have to tell ya someting," breathed the Brooklyn accented voice next to his ear. Kaiba felt his own breath hitch for a second, though he later edited it out when he mentally replayed the scene for himself in the safety of his office.

"_I'm not dead_. _I don't belong here._"

The taller man pushed him away with disgust. So that was his game. He should have known. Trying to use him to con his way out of his service term. Was he expected to risk his eternal future for some random boy who was too cowardly to face the consequences of his own actions? Well he could wait and see just how far _that_ would get him. As if people didn't try it often enough. Already the people around them were staring at him with a hungry look in their eyes. If he helped one person…

He shook himself free from his thoughts. He had the vague feeling that something out of place was going on…

"Would you stop that!" he snapped temperamentally.

Joey stared at him blankly. "Stop what?"

"Stop touching me, rubbing up against me, whatever the hell it is you're doing! I am _not_ a dancing pole," Kaiba replied acidly.

The blonde quickly pulled away from him as if he hadn't even realized what he was doing, but continued dancing. "Yeah, well yer tall enough ta be one. 'Sides, it's not my fault I can't stop dancin'." His voice held a scowl, but Kaiba had to imagine it because his countenance still bore that silly grin.

"Then whose fault is it, _mutt_?" Kaiba retorted sharply. It was a challenge, but he didn't wait for the other boy to reply. Instead, he shoved his way through the looming crowd before Joey had a chance to follow.

* * *

Joey stared after the tall man in shock for a few long moments. Where the hell had that come from? Kaiba had been about ready to give in when all of the sudden he had gotten huffy and stormed off. Joey frowned in confusion as much as his face would allow, making his smile falter only slightly. For a few minutes it hadn't felt like begging; it had felt more like wheedling a favor out of an old friend. And then…BAM! It was all over, his last grain of hope lost in a sea of people.

"Bastard," he muttered. "Fucking bastard." Who was he to get his hopes up and then shatter them? _Kaiba _was the one who had sent him here! Sure, he had been given a choice, but did Kaiba even _try_ that hard to warn him? All he could remember him saying was that Hell was more "intense." More intense. Ha! Did he even know what it was like to forget your own name? To forget everyone that you ever cared about?

In that respect Kaiba had given him some help. He had told him his name. Of course, he hadn't known that Joey had forgotten it. If he had he probably would have just called him "mutt" or something. But, still, he knew his name now, and he wasn't going to let himself forget it again! Joey. Joey, Joey, Joey!

Meanwhile, his body continued to dance, and his mouth continued to smile. By now it was starting to hurt. He wanted to stop, but his body wouldn't let him. The harder he tried, the more wildly his limbs flailed against his will. He was burning up. Of course, this was Hell. He had been stupid to think it would be easy. Sweat was dripping from his body, and his throat was parched. His head pounded. His ribs threatened to snap with each breath from the swelling of his lungs, but no matter how much air he gulped in, it never seemed to be enough. "More intense." Fuck you, Kaiba, fuck you.

He had to get out of here.

He danced his way to the very edge of the pit and, with a piercing war cry, flung himself forward violently. His body slammed into an invisible barrier, and he crumpled backwards onto the floor slick with the sweat of a hundred thousand dancing people. His body automatically picked itself up and began to jerk itself around spasmodically. Punishment, he thought, for trying to escape. It hurt like… ha, yeah, like hell.

He laughed wildly until it seemed impossible for his lungs to hurt any more than they already did. People were staring at him. The grin on his face was now genuine as he beamed back at their hollow smiles. He felt sorry for them. They were trapped here. But he was different. He knew who he was and where he was going. They had probably long forgotten.

"Joey, Joey, Joey!" He chanted loudly. Then he made another run at the wall.

He fell again. "I'm goin' ta Domino City ta see Yugi an' Tristan an' Tea an' my sista Serenity!" he shouted as he let his body pick itself up. He winked at a startled but pretty girl standing nearby. "Whatda'ya say I hook you up wit my pal Yugi? He's a real nice guy." He didn't wait for an answer. He hurtled himself forward, bracing his body for the impact.

He stumbled backwards again, but this time he stayed on his feet. He charged again.

If no one was going to help him, then Joey Wheeler would just have to help himself!

* * *

"There you go, sir. Everything should be in order," said Ryou Bakura pleasantly as he slid a thick pile of forms across his teakwood receptionist desk. The demon on the other side allowed himself a small smile, and Ryou smiled back. Of course, he didn't have to. After all, this was Purgatory, and its inhabitants were free to look as dejected as they wanted. But Ryou had a relatively nice job with a comfortable working pace, and he knew just how much worse it could get, so he really had nothing to be dejected about.

His chocolate brown eyes watched as the demon left his office, and then he leaned back in his chair and ruffled his mane of long white hair, yawning. Work was seldom hectic at the Gates like it was in other places, but today had been particularly slow. He glanced at his calendar, wondering vaguely if it was some sort of demonic holiday. Even though he technically worked for Purgatory, Ryou did most of his dealing with demons. The Gates was, after all, the _only_ way back to the mortal world. Most of the shades in Purgatory had nowhere near the level of clearance needed to get even a one-day visa to the realm of the living, and the ones that did almost never had a reason to go. There were a few freelancers, but the bulk of his business came from these ambassadors of Hell.

It had been a cruel trick to put mild, virtuous Ryou Bakura in charge of telling these tempestuous Hell-creatures what they could and could not do, but after a hundred and one years in Purgatory and half a century in this position, he was beginning to expect all sorts of outlandish and melodramatic things from demons.

So when what looked to be a teenage boy dressed in a ridiculously gaudy pair of gold trousers burst into his office panting madly and dripping sweat onto the lemon chiffon carpet, Ryou merely said, "Good day, sir. May I see your license?" He had never seen him before, but if he had just gotten his license, then Ryou wouldn't have had a _reason_ to know him.

"What?" asked the "boy." If he was a demon, even a fledgling demon, then chances were that he was actually older than Ryou.

"Your license," Ryou repeated politely. "You do want to go to the upper world, don't you?" he asked, gesturing towards the door. It was a massive circular wooden door with old-fashioned brass loops for handles. In reality it only led to the garage where all the vehicles were stored. The actual portal was on the wall opposite the door several yards away, and for someone to leave through it Ryou had to go down with them, program the portal, and unlock it with seventy-seven different keys, some manual and some computer operated.

"Dat's it?…Dat's…da way out?" the boy asked pulling on a tuft of his damp, corn-colored hair.

Ryou smiled wryly. Most people thought that the only exit in all of Hell and Purgatory would be something a bit more spectacular. Many came into his office with a vision like that of the supposed pearly gates of Heaven. The mortal world, after all, was a sort of Heaven to them after what they had been through here. That was why the portal had been deceptively dubbed "The Gates" even though there weren't any gates at all.

"Yes," he said. "That's it."

In an instant the boy was through the door and running for the portal.

For a few moments Ryou sat rigid in his seat as his mind processed what had just happened. "Stop!" he shouted, jumping up and running after him.

The boy ignored him and continued to run straight at the portal. Ryou held his breath. There had always been escape attempts. He had witnessed them before, but none like this. Surely no one could be so stupid as to just run at the portal without even touching the computer or stealing some keys or even just taking a car…

The boy charged forward wildly, screaming in some incoherent foreign language what sounded to Ryou like, "FAAAAK YYUUUU, KAAAIIIIYYYYAAAA!" The Victorian youth wrinkled his nose. What sort of barbaric language was _that_?

He didn't have long to contemplate it, though. The boy was just steps away from the portal, and he had launched himself forward, attempting to dive head-first into the very solid and very locked door. Ryou scrunched his eyes shut and turned his head away as he awaited the sickening crack that would accompany the boy's impact. But it never came. Instead, there was a flash of blinding light.

Ryou slowly and warily opened his eyes. The boy was gone. He ran to the portal and put a hand on it, but quickly drew it back. He stared at the fresh red burn on his hand. The door was still solid, but pulsing and hot. Impossible…He darted around the other side to the black computer and rapidly typed something in. He stared at the screen for what seemed like an eternity in disbelief. None of the seventy-seven locks had been touched, yet all of them had been opened simultaneously.

That was how they found him when the demon squad burst in, standing at the computer with his long delicate fingers resting on the keyboard. The portal was still warm and vibrating, telltale signs that it had recently been opened. He slowly turned his head towards them, his lips parted slightly in confusion and his chocolate brown eyes gazing at them hazily. Why were they staring at him like that? He looked down at his ivory fingers perched daintily on the ebony keys and realized…

"No," he said hoarsely, backing away from the computer. "No, it's not what…no…I didn't…"

"Arrest him!"

* * *

Ahhh…I can already see the reviews. "What the -expletive- was that, woman? That's not how it was supposed to go! They were supposed to make-out, you -expletive- -expletive-! Don't you know _anything_ about writing fanfics? And what the -expletive- did you do to Ryou! You suck, -expletive-!" 


	7. Chapter 7

Author's Notes: Argh! I hate this chapter! It's being so...stupid! No, don't read it! Spare yourself! Actually, do read it! And tell me what the heck is wrong with it! Maybe I've just read it too many times...sigh... Next chapter will be _so_ much better. Promise. It has more action, too. Whatever. I wash my hands of this. Maybe I'll rewrite it if I can figure out how.

Neeways...Twenty-seventh review extravaganza! Thanks everyone! I love you! Platonically! Twenty-seven is my lucky number in case you were wondering. But that doesn't mean that you should stop reviewing. I mean, I don't love it _that_ much…

Ahem. So it's been a while since we saw Yugi, right? Well, you now get the privilege of watching him slowly slip into insanity! Also, we'll see what Joey's cruelly abandoned body has been up to. You should be glad to hear that it has been given a good home, though I have the sneaking suspicion that many of my esteemed readers would have preferred to adopt it themselves. Later, we shall see how Joey's soul is faring, and then it's back to the afterlife to find out more about Ryou Bakura's scandalous arrest. And stay tuned for a special guest appearance by Domino City's most eligible deceased bachelor, Seto Kaiba! All this and more on today's edition of:

* * *

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter VII

"What's wrong with you, Joey?" Yugi murmured gently as he stroked his friend's forehead. It felt eerily like touching a corpse.

In fact, he may has well have been touching a corpse; it had been two weeks since Joey Wheeler had been alive to the world around him in a sense beyond medical technicality. Two weeks since Yugi had seen his best friend collapse on the sidewalk. Two weeks since he had run into a bar screaming bloody murder with hot tears streaming down his face. Two weeks since he had heard the wail of sirens from inside an ambulance. Two weeks since he had seen Joey's crooked apologetic grin. Two weeks counted by the evenings spent on stiff blue chairs surrounded by white-washed walls, pretending to read the latest issue of _Better Homes and Gardens_ while wondering why he wasn't allowed in without Joey's mother when he had been closer to Joey than she, or any of his family, had ever been. Two weeks of silent, sterilized Hell.

Joey shifted slightly under the covers. His brow furrowed slightly and the corners of his mouth twitched downwards. He looked puzzled. "What do…dance?" he murmured drowsily.

Yugi's heart leapt for a second. "Joey?" he asked hopefully.

Joey lay still in the hospital bed, and Yugi sighed. The doctor had warned him not to get his hopes up; patients who had fallen into comas were known to move and talk and even sometimes get up and walk without actually being conscious. He wondered what Joey was thinking about. Or if he could even think at all. Something seemed to have been troubling him these past couple of weeks, though; he tossed and turned fitfully, muttering strings of words that seemed to have no connection. Sometimes he cursed, very often he said his own name, and once he had inexplicably said something in Italian.

There had been only one time while in this vegetative state that Joey had made himself perfectly clear. It had been a couple of days after the "incident," as the doctors called it. Joey's mother, a petite dark-haired woman who had given Joey his brown eyes but not much else, noticed that Yugi had been hanging around outside for a long time and finally invited him into the room. He had been sitting in the corner unobtrusively when the doctor had come in to explain to her what was happening with her son. He had the feeling that he should have left, but instead he curled up and pushed his body tight against the wall, wishing desperately, for once, that he was even smaller than he already was.

He listened to the doctor's low words; through the roundabout sentences and mind-boggling medical terms he pieced together what was being said. In short, the doctors were just as much in the dark as they were; they didn't know what had happened, what was happening, or what would happen to Joey. He might recover in a few weeks, a few months, a few years, or maybe never. He could feel his own eyes watering as Joey's mother burst into tears, but even through his blurred vision, he still saw it happen. Joey's eyelids flickered open. Yugi had sat paralyzed for a few long seconds. It wasn't real. It couldn't be real. It hadn't been until later that he had learned about the variety of alarming things that people could do while in comas, and it made the next few seconds all the more thrilling.

"I'm not dead yet," Joey announced calmly.

The room fell into pure silence. Yugi was sure that even his own heart had stopped beating. Joey's distant brown eyes continued to stare unblinkingly at the ceiling. Then slowly he closed them and rolled over onto his side, burying his head into the pillow.

Yugi had wanted to laugh. The entire scenario seemed so ridiculous, yet it was so incredibly…Joey. "_I'm not dead yet. Takes a lot more den a little unconsciousness ta take down Joey Wheela'. I been knocked out plenty a times; just makin' sure ya remember dat, kay? I'd hate ta wake up in a box six feet unda'..._"

The unspoken words that seemed to lie behind Joey's proclamation of life had given him hope, hope that resurged through his body as he stood now by his bedside absentmindedly stroking his friend's head. Joey wouldn't abandon them even if he had to wrestle Death himself just to get back and say goodbye to everyone.

"He's smiling."

Yugi looked up, startled. Joey's little sister Serenity was standing beside him, her hands clasped together and her tear-stained hazel eyes alight with joy. Yugi shifted his gaze down towards Joey. A small smile was playing at the corners of his lips. And he was getting warmer; a healthy glow was beginning to return to his pallid complexion.

Everything…everything was going to be all right now.

With cheerful chirps one of the machines next to the bed announced that Joey's pulse was gaining speed. Yugi could see the numbers crawling slowly upward. And he was getting warmer still. Beep…beep…beep..beep..beep.. Really warm…beep..beep..beep.beep.beep. Joey's smile was waning. His hair was beginning to stick to his forehead. Beep.beep.beep!beep!beep! Sweat was trickling down the side of his neck. He was burning up. "Serenity? See if you can find a nurse…" Something strange was going on, but for some reason Yugi remained rational and calm. It was almost as if he had been through this before. Beep!beep!beep! But that would be impossible…

"What's wrong?" It was the nurse.

"I don't know…" Beep!beep!beep!BEEP!BEEP!BEEP!

A scream of pain. Limbs flailing wildly.

"What's going on?" "Code White! Code White (**1**)!" "His pulse is sky-rocketing!" "We need an anticonvulsant; get me an ampoule of four milligram Ativan(**2**)!" "I've never seen anything like this from a patient in a vegetative state…"

He felt a firm hand on his shoulder. "Son? I think it would be better if you stepped outside…"

* * *

The cold night air caressed his cheek and gently brushed his golden bangs across his forehead. Darkness covered Domino City, relieved only by the pools of yellow-white light that spilled from the electric streetlamps that hung overhead. He shivered, his mind still haunted by the image of Joey's seemingly lifeless body bathed in a pool of such unearthly light. 

He hadn't wanted to leave the hospital. The nurse, though, had been very firm about visiting hours being over, and since he wasn't family…technically…

At least Joey was doing better. Or that was what they thought anyway. Joey's mother had informed him that the injection had kicked in. He had stopped screaming and convulsing, and his vital signs were gradually returning to normal. But as far as Yugi was concerned, they had only treated the symptom, not the cause. Surely Joey had to be in some sort of terrible pain to react that violently!

He wondered about this as he rounded the corner and started for home. He probably should have called someone to give him a ride at this time of night, but he needed to sort things out. Like why, for example, he had been so calm? He should have been panicking once he had realized what was going on. What had given him the foresight to send Serenity out of the room to get a nurse? Did it have something to do with the feeling of having done the same thing before? When was "before"?

Suddenly, a man stepped out of the alleyway in front of him. Yugi put his hand over his mouth to stifle a gasp and wondered if it would be better to duck into the shadows or to run into the open light of the street. No…it was all right. The man was just going to a car parked up the road, absentmindedly tossing his keys in the air and letting their jingles pierce the silence of the night. It was a Ferrari painted _rosso corsa_, the violent red of a race car. He wondered why it hadn't been towed or stolen yet, especially on a street like this one. Of course, for all he knew this man could be stealing it now; maybe he had just beaten up the _real_ owner of the car in that alleyway.

Yugi pressed himself against the unlighted brick wall and tried to get a better look at the man without being seen himself. At least if he saw him on the news…He squinted at the man. The only thing that he could notice about him in the dim light was his remarkable head of long white hair.

Was it his imagination or did he just hear a low hiss next to his ear?

He didn't have time to worry about this new development; another man came out of the alleyway, but this one came running. He looked about wildly and then spotted Yugi. His mind screamed at him to run, but his body wouldn't obey.

"Hey, kid! You see a guy with crazy white hair go by?"

Yugi opened and closed his mouth dumbly, waiting for sound to come out. "I-I…y-you mean the one over there?"

The white-haired man who had just opened the door to the car froze and looked up.

"Where?" the second man demanded, looking around frantically.

"Th-there." He pointed. "By the red car."

Staring straight at him, the white-haired man let the door of the car fall shut and began to walk towards them.

"What red car? Are you trying to mess with me, kid?"

"N-no! He's right there! See, he's coming over!"

The man grabbed his collar and half lifted him in the air so that the tips of his toes were just barely grazing the sidewalk. "Look, I asked you a simple question. I don't appreciate you playing games with me."

The white-haired man had now come to a stop in front of them.

"He's standing right next to you! Why can't you see him?" Yugi insisted desperately.

"The real question is why can _you_ see me?"

"What?"

"_Bakura._"

Yugi stiffened. It was the voice again. He hadn't heard it since the day Joey—

"Hello…what was your name again? Oh, that's right, you don't know, do you?" A vicious smile full of sharp white teeth directed…where? At him?

"I _do_ know my name! It's Yugi!"

"What the hell are you talking about, kid?" The man demanded, shaking him forcefully.

"_Shut up, Bakura_!"

"Make me. Oh, that's right, you can't do that either!"

"Can't do what?"

"Who the fuck are you talking to? This isn't funny! What are you, some kind of schizo?"

"_I said, shut up!"_

"I'm not crazy! Stop it!" His knees hit the pavement. Sobbing. Head spinning.

"Shit! He's having a seizure!"

"How well you treat your loyal subjects, O Mighty Pharaoh."

"Stop it! Get out of my head!"

"Shit, shit, shit!" The sound of feet hitting the sidewalk fading into the distance.

"_Get out._"

Yugi whimpered at the sound. "No," he pleaded. "Go away."

"Hmph! As if—"

"_Now_!"

A long pause. A scoff and then another pair of feet moving away, though at a more leisurely pace. The roar of a powerful engine and the sound of a car speeding reckessly away.

All he could hear now was the sound of his own erratic breathing.

"I'm not crazy. I'm not," he whispered. But then why could he see and hear things that other people couldn't?

Wiping away his tears with the back of his arm, he slowly picked himself up and shuffled towards home. For a moment his shadow seemed to flicker in the wrong direction entirely.

"I'm not crazy…"

* * *

White light. Pure white. Blinding. He wanted to look away, but he couldn't move. There didn't seem to be any place to look _to _anyway. He had tried to close his eyes, but even his eyelids seemed to be frozen in place. Frozen. Suspended in the headlong dive that he had launched himself into the portal with. Slowly floating through the white light that engulfed everything. 

And then, it was as if somebody had flicked off a light switch. Darkness. He could move again, but now he was falling helplessly through nothingness. Yep, he remembered this part.

But not this part. Little twinkling lights began to break out overhead, set against a background of silky indigo. With a great deal of effort he lifted his hand upwards, trying to reach out and touch one of the teasing sparkles. Funny, though; he didn't remember his hand being see-through. He tilted the hand a little, studying it in awe, and then dragged the other one up next to it. He could sort of see where they were supposed to be, two thick places in the air where his hands _should_ have been. The little white dots had become more focused. 'Stars,' he thought. The dull roar of an engine. Through his hand he could see a long, narrow silver thing with two colored lights flashing on it. 'Airplane.'

_Whoosh!..._ _Whoosh!..._ _Whoosh!_ He definitely didn't remember this part. The blue-violet backdrop had been replaced with whitish-gray tiles seen through a veil of dim light. He seemed to be falling through layers of them. _Whoosh!_...Falling…_Whoosh!..._ Holy shit! Was that a person?..._Whoosh!..._ _Whoosh!..._ _Whoosh!..._

And then everything went black.

* * *

With a sharp choke and a loud gasp, Joey Wheeler sat straight up. Where was he? His lungs took in grateful gulps of air as his wide brown eyes peered through the darkness at his surroundings. He was on a bed. Not his own bed. Had they caught him? 

He looked down at his hands and examined them in the sliver of moonlight let in by a faulty curtain. They looked and felt solid again. But what were those? He stretched out his arms in front of him, and a jolt of fear rushed through him. There were _tubes_ sticking out of his arms. Oh God, they _had_ caught him! And now…now they were going to torture him as punishment! He felt sick to his stomach. With one hand he ripped the tubes out of his left arm, pulling long needles after them. He had to get out of here! They were going to use him as some sort of twisted experiment! He yanked the tubes out of his other arm, ignoring the pain, and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

How? There was the door, but his experiences with doors as of late had been not so good; they only tended to lead to more confusion, and, inevitably in Hell, danger that was worse than life-threatening. Besides, they would probably have some sort of guard posted outside. Another demon patrol. He shuddered and decided to make the door his last resort.

There was a vent. It would be quite a squeeze, but...no. Who was he kidding? Even Yugi would have a hard time fitting through that.

He cast a despairing eye over the rest of the room. Bed, machines, tube rack, curtains, chairs…

_Curtains._

He threw them apart, revealing a window. Better yet, it was the kind of window that swung outwards. He just had to crank the handle, and then all that would be separating him from the outside would be a flimsy piece of screen. Then he could just sit at the edge of the window and lower himself out nice and easy. Quickly he cranked the window open and then felt around the edges of the screen, frowning. He couldn't seem to find where it unlatched...There! With a sharp snap the screen came off into his hands, and he set it down on the floor, careful not to alert any demons that may or may not have been lurking outside the door.

Half delirious with joy, he thrust one bare leg out into the chill night air and soon followed it with the other, noticing, for the first time, that he was wearing some sort of dress (**3**). Sickos. Well, at least he wouldn't have to put up with them anymore! Grinning madly as he gazed at the towering skyscrapers and the streets dotted with the glittering headlights of cars, he noticed two things.

One, that this part of Hell sure looked a lot like Domino City, even if it was in the dark.

And two, that for all the time he had taken fiddling with the window, he had never once really looked out it. If he had he might have noticed earlier that he was six stories off the ground.

* * *

Ryou groaned, entangling his long thin fingers in his disheveled mane of white hair and keeping his eyes shut tight. Maybe it was all just a bad dream. A silly, wishful thought, he knew. He hadn't slept in over a century, let alone dreamt; his sole precious holiday was carefully being saved for an emergency. If he could make it another century without completely exhausting himself to the point where he had to use it, then he would have two holidays! Imagine that, forty-eight hours to do whatever he pleased; then he would have plenty of time to dream. 

Yet, he would have willingly given up any number of holidays just to get himself out of this nightmare.

"How did he get out?"

Ryou cradled his head in his hands, knowing that he shouldn't have allowed himself to get to this point of desperation, but unable to gather his wits about him. He had already answered that question. He didn't know. How _should_ he know?

"Why did you _let_ him out?"

He lifted his head, his chocolate brown eyes now open and wide with alarm. He opened his mouth and a soft, perplexed voice replied, "I did no such thing!" in aristocratic British tones. His high-society accent had never quite matched his station in life, and he was fully aware of the eyes of the questioners as they drilled holes through his lovingly mended coat. He pulled it a little more snugly around him.

"Why did you let him out?" the man in the center repeated. "Do you know him? Is he your friend? Your comrade?"

What were they insinuating? That he had been involved in some sort of conspiracy? That he had planned it? This was an outrage! Horrific words like "Disgrace," "Demotion," and even "Hell" passed through his mind.

"I have never seen him before in my life. Or my afterlife."

They couldn't really send him to Hell, could they? But even if they just demoted him…This wasn't the best job in the world, but he knew just how much worse it could get, even in Purgatory.

"Why did you—"

"You wanted to see me, Commissioner?"

A new voice, sharp and cold like ice. It wasn't one that he heard very often, but it was one that was impossible to forget.

"Good day, Mr. Kaiba," said Ryou, standing up and bowing slightly to pay homage his superior. The tall blue-eyed man looked at him in mild surprise.

"Ryou," he replied with a nod, acknowledging the other's presence. Ryou Bakura was one of the few people who merited such an honor.

As Ryou sat, Kaiba turned his attention to the other men present around the teakwood desk.

"Well?" he demanded impatiently.

"There's been an escape," one informed him.

"Impossible," he replied promptly, waving the incredible notion aside. An escape? While his system was in place? The idea was laughable.

But no one was laughing.

He shot Ryou a questioning glance. If anyone could be trusted to lend some sanity to the situation it would be him.

He quickly responded to the brunette's unvoiced question. "A young man, an American, I judge from his accent, with a great deal of golden hair."

Something jolted inside of Kaiba. Could it be…? He banished the idea from his mind. There were undoubtedly millions of young, blonde American men here. So why should his mind jump to one in particular?

"What was he wearing?" he asked to put his mind at ease.

"Gold…er, trousers. Very shiny gold trousers." Ryou hesitated, and then added meekly, "I thought he was a demon. Most people don't…I say, are you feeling all right, Mr. Kaiba?"

"Fine!" the brunette snapped explosively.

"Perhaps Mr. Kaiba would like to relieve his mind by divulging a little information on the whereabouts of our flaxen-haired fugitive," suggested a familiar oily voice from behind him.

Kaiba whipped around and found himself facing his fourth least favorite person in the universe.

"Johnson. What makes you think that I would know anything about your 'flaxen-haired fugitive'?" he asked dangerously.

"Oh, I don't know," the lawyer from Hell replied, scrutinizing his fingernails. "Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you wrote his contract?"

"Don't be ridiculous," he said hoarsely. Some of the demons were beginning to eye him suspiciously.

"There's nothing for me to be ridiculous about. I have the contract right here," said Johnson, pulling out a sheaf of parchment from inside his coat.

"You can't know that it was him! This is just a childish attempt to destroy my credibility!"

"I'd say you're doing a pretty good job of destroying your credibility all on your own," a voice purred from the doorway. It was the voice of Kaiba's thrid least favorite person in the universe. Today was just getting better and better.

"What do you want, Devlin?"

"Well, I just happen to have some feed from the cameras in the garage…"

Wonderful. Just peachy.

"…and I think that you might recognize this face," he said, holding up a picture and smirking.

Yes, there was Wheeler in all his golden glory. That _idiot_. The only contract he had ever made and it had to be for that _mutt_ who had somehow managed to escape. Devlin and Johnson were having a field day with this. He could see in Johnson's sharp gray eyes that he was already making a case against him; between the two of them they would find a way to pin the whole thing on him. And if they ever found out that he had been talking to him in Lust…

"_Him_?" he asked incredulously. "_He's _the one who escaped?"

"Yes," Duke said pleasantly. "Maybe you'd like to tell us how."

"Certainly. Sheer dumb luck. You do realize that this comes as quite a blow to _both_ of us, don't you? I mean, the two of us were ordered to create the security system. Of course, we never could have foreseen utter stupidity as a method of escape. If anyone wanted to seriously beat the system they would need _both_ of us to assist them," he said pointedly.

Duke's smile waned as Kaiba's grew ever so slightly. If he was going down then Devlin was going with him. And he was willing to bet that Duke wasn't ready to trade his cushy desk job for eternal torment just yet.

"Of course," said green-eyed man quietly, "that would be…_unthinkable_."

"Of course." A stalemate, but it was better than a loss.

"So this twist an' twirly--" began one of the minor demons gesturing to Ryou.

The white-haired clerk cut him off. "I beg your pardon, but I'm not a lady. I should have thought that was obvious."

The demon grinned wickedly, revealing two rows of crooked yellow teeth. "Now what's a ream toff like yourself doin' voken' Romeny, I wonder? (**4**)"

Ryou gulped. "I…"

"We'll deal with _you_ later. I don't trust you," one of the senior demons snapped. "And if I am to understand that Kaiba drafted that boy's contract, then I would say that he has the best chance of finding him. Get this man a car. But you'd do well to remember, Kaiba," he added lowly, "that it's not just Satan who's upset about this; the entire Board has expressed their concern. You're not out of the woods just yet."

Kaiba cursed.

* * *

1) Code White- generally a pediatric emergency. I _think_ Joey would still be in pediatric, but I'm not really sure. 

2) Ativan- brand of lorazepam sedative/anticonvulsant. Not being a doctor, I don't know that they'd use that one exactly, but it is a fast-acting hospital injection for seizures and the like …What? It's not like I didn't do _any_ research into this; I'm taking a bit of artistic license, is all.

3) A hospital gown. Not an actual dress. I just put that in because when I read it through I suddenly had this image of Joey waking up in a ball gown. XD

4) Translation: "I wonder what a "genuine" gentleman like you is doing talking Thieves' Cant?" A twist and twirly is a girl, by the way. If you didn't pick up on that.


	8. Chapter 8

Author's Notes: So…how've you been? Look, I'm sorry, all right? We can still make this work, can't we? I know it's been over a month, but I've been…busy. With…stuff…

No, seriously, I've been taking this summer keyboarding class because my counselor "forgot" to tell me that they changed graduation requirements and that I would need another practical arts credit until the very last minute. After four hours of straight keyboarding everyday, you can imagine that typing up a story isn't exactly at the top of my 'to do' list. And I may have gotten a little distracted reading books and watching anime. A little.

Anyway, this update is just in time for my birthday! So, enjoy, and remember to review! A little praise or constructive criticism always makes for a nice birthday present!

* * *

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter VIII

A sleek onyx black car with tinted windows pulled up the narrow gravel driveway of a small rundown house behind an equally rundown brown Cadillac. Had any of the inhabitants of the surrounding houses been able to see the car, they probably would have suspected that either Mr. Wheeler or his son had had an unfortunate run-in with either the local mob or maybe the Domino City police. Nice cars like that didn't have any other business in this sort of neighborhood, especially at this time of night.

The truth was, however, that none of the neighbors would have been able to see the car if they had been staring straight at it. But if they _could_ see it and if they _had_ been watching it just then, they would have had the pleasure of viewing the towering, handsome young man who emerged from the vehicle surveying the scenery with a scowl.

The young man made his way up the driveway, the gravel of which was noticeably _not_ crunching beneath the soles of his black Italian leather boots. That was because said boots were not, in fact, touching the ground and were instead grazing the air just above it with each deliberate step.

He walked up the wooden stairs of the porch and gently tested the doorknob; though it annoyed him greatly, he was not surprised to find it locked.

He sighed and slowly closed his cerulean blue eyes.

He pushed all of his thoughts aside, clearing a space in his mind to devote entirely to pure concentration. It took years of rigorous training and practice to be able to concentrate so intensely on absolute nothingness; to remove the clutter of the mind at will and draw on the power lurking in the very depths of the soul was no easy feat, but it came in handy when it was necessary to walk through a locked door, for instance.

For a seasoned demon the entire process would have taken all of a fraction of second, but for a man who spent most of his afterlife in front of a computer and rarely ventured to the realm of the living, the effort required was necessarily much more considerable.

Fortunately, he was spared the exertion. He whipped around as he heard the erratic crunch of gravel beneath heavy, unsure feet. A large man with a mop of messy blonde hair was staggering drunkenly up the driveway. He mounted the steps of the porch, and the taller man quickly got out of his way and slipped into the shadows, watching him with curiosity.

The blonde man steadied himself against the door and began jerking the knob violently, cursing loudly when it refused to grant him entrance to the house. He began banging on the door.

"Joey! Open up, ya worthless sonuvabitch! Joey! JOEY! Ya got two fuckin' seconds ta open dis goddamn door, ya hear me?"

The man hiding in the shadows raised his eyebrows in surprise. Wheeler had wanted to escape Hell to come back to _this_?

"JOEY! If ya don't open da fuckin' door _right now_, I'm gonna make ya wish you was dead!" the blonde man bellowed.

Suddenly he stopped banging and stood in silence, panting slightly with effort as something seemed to dawn on him.

"Good as dead already," he muttered. "Sonuvabitch!" he shouted, and he flung himself against the door. It groaned in protest as the old hinges snapped and gave way, and the door fell to the ground with a heavy thud muffled by the carpet.

Mr. Wheeler stumbled in and dragged himself to the couch before collapsing on it in a state of alcohol-induced stupor.

The tall blue-eyed shadow out on the porch waited a few seconds longer, just in case, and then silently slipped in, completely unobserved.

* * *

Rooted to the spot, Joey stared down between his legs at the street below, his knuckles as pale as his ashen face as he gripped the edge of the window for dear life. Six stories. He had counted the windows. Four times. How high did you have to be before you would die for sure? _That_ was the sort of thing they should learn in physics. It didn't help to know about centri-whatever-it-was force when he was six stories up and bloodthirsty demons were (probably) right outside his door. 

His toes curled as a burst of cold wind wrapped around his bare feet, legs, and arms. The shock of cold woke him from his dream-like trance. What the heck had he been thinking about physics for when his life was in danger? He had to get down from here!

He put one of his hands on the other side of the wall to steady himself and shakily began to lift one of his legs. His palm, slick with sweat, slipped, and his body jerked forward. He felt his heart jump into his throat as he just barely managed to catch himself.

'Shit, shit, shit…! Okay…okay. Calm down, Wheeler. No rush. Easy does it.'

His heart leapt and he froze again. A door closed nearby. There were footsteps in the hall outside and the faint sound of voices and laughter. They were coming for him.

He looked around wildly and helplessly. There had to be another way. There _had_ to be. But he couldn't find it.

Then something occurred to him. If he was in Hell he couldn't really die, could he? Everyone else here was already dead, and it wasn't like they could die again. The same rules that applied to them would apply to him, right?

Maybe. He couldn't really explain his confused logic, not even to himself, but it _felt_ right. If he thought about it without really thinking too hard, it made perfect sense.

The footsteps were getting closer. That settled it. Joey closed his eyes and tried to solidify his resolve. It wouldn't be bad. Just like flying.

He stretched his arms outward and relaxed his muscles, smiling faintly. Here he was invincible, he assured himself. He couldn't die. But he could be put through near eternal torture if he stayed.

Joey leaned forward and gently rolled into the air as the smooth gray concrete below rushed up to meet him.

* * *

Kaiba had no trouble finding Joey's room. As soon as he had opened the door it had been obvious. It was the only room in the house that suggested that someone other than a middle-aged drunk lived here. 

For one, it was relatively clean. Relatively, of course, not being by Kaiba's own standards, but in comparison with the rest of the house. It wasn't as clean as the living room (which was, in Kaiba's opinion, the only other habitable room in the house), but it was by no means atrocious. It was a simple arrangement with a bed and a closet being the only substantial entities. Across from the bed a broken mirror hung on the wall, and the corner next to it had obviously been designated for dirty laundry. A backpack had been tossed carelessly on the floor and its contents lay in a pile next to it. He had probably been looking for something in a hurry.

That brought up an important question: Had Joey already been here?

He thought not, but he couldn't be sure. The problem was that the portal hadn't been given a specific location when it had somehow been switched on. That meant that he would end up wherever his body had been laid to rest, probably a local cemetery. They already had demons searching those. Chances were, however, that he would go into shock after seeing his own grave and head instinctively towards home.

That was where Kaiba came in handy. Spirits weren't allowed to just wander into anyone's home; if they could then demons would just embark on a siege of nonstop torment to coerce their prey into signing outlandish contracts.

Therefore, in accordance with the regulations set forth by the Board, spirits were required to be granted verbal or written permission from a living human inhabitant of the building before entering. Kaiba and Bakura were the only ones who had ever been granted permission to enter this house, and since Bakura was Hell knew where, that left Kaiba as the only soul qualified for the job. Even this, though, was probably pushing the law; Joey had consented to let him into the house, but, having been sent to Hell, Joey was presumably no longer a living member of the household.

The best thing would be to ask the permission of the slumbering drunk on the couch, but as far as he was concerned that would only be a waste of precious time and energy when a good Hellish lawyer could argue a case like this for centuries and think it easy money. Besides, the man was practically comatose.

There was only one major problem that he could see with the current setup; he didn't think Joey would be coming.

From the look of his room it didn't seem that Joey regarded it as anything more than a place to sleep. There were none of the usual personal touches that belonged in the living quarters of a teenaged boy. Even his own room had had pictures and books and games that betrayed his character. Just a splash of color on the walls or the bed sheets would have been enough, but even that much wasn't there. The room was almost impersonal.

An odd thought struck him. _This could have been a room at the orphanage._

And, suddenly, it all became clear. He had lived in that orphanage for nearly five years, and not once did he ever think of it as "home." No matter how bad things got, he never even _considered_ going back there once he and Mokuba had been adopted. It wasn't home, it would never be home, and he had vowed to do whatever it took to keep them from having to go back. It was only a temporary inconvenience, he had often reassured his brother and himself.

That was how Joey felt about his father's house. A temporary inconvenience. It was a house, not a home, and once he left, he wouldn't look back. Joey wouldn't come here, not if he had anywhere else to go. And he had to have _someone_ to turn to. A person like Joey was bound to have friends, friends who he could easily love more than his own father, friends whose houses he "practically lived at." _They_ would be the people that he would try to run to.

But who were these friends? There had to be _something_ that could help him find out…He knelt down and began smoothing the crumpled papers that lay strewn about the backpack. All he needed was a full name on a note or a half-copied homework assignment. But no such luck. They were all Joey's own papers except for a hastily scribbled note that had been passed back and forth between "Jo-jo" and "Trissy" discussing the merits of the various girls in the classroom and proposing the possibility of ditching English to go to the arcade. In any case it was useless.

A more in depth search of the room proved to be equally useless; the closet contained only clothes and shoes, and a quick glance under the bed revealed only dust and cobwebs. A look under the mattress yielded slightly more; there was an ancient porn magazine, its glossy leaves stuck tightly together probably from having been compressed for so long, and quite possibly due to the aid of certain slightly adhesive bodily…he did _not_ want to think about that.

Distinctly flustered, slightly red, and _very_ annoyed with himself, he returned the magazine to its place and let the mattress fall back over it before seating himself at the edge of the bed.

He found himself staring into the broken mirror, and he glared at it as he violently smoothed down some of his chestnut locks that had fallen into disarray. He was not glaring at himself for not yet having found the answer he sought, and he was not glaring at his reflection for having rendered his hair as imperfect for one fleeting moment. He was glaring at the mirror itself.

It didn't fit. Broken mirrors were for romantic melodramatic fools who wanted to "subtly" convey to others that their hearts and dreams were equally as shattered while actually confirming suspicions that the only thing "broken" about them was their sense of reason. Joey may have been a fool, but he was by no means romantic or melodramatic. Why keep a broken mirror when there was a perfectly usable one in the bathroom? Either it held some sort of sentimental value (doubtful), or it had not quite outlived its usefulness.

Could it really be that simple?

The mirror was frameless and held in place by two small metal brackets at each end. He carefully slid it out, noting the slipshod way that the broken pieces had been glued together. Behind it a jagged rectangle had been carved into the wall.

Joey had probably broken the mirror and had hastily glued it back together with every intention of finding something to put in its stead, but the cuts in the wall were too glaringly obvious to leave without some sort of immediate cover. He had clearly never gotten around to replacing it.

He dug his fingernails into the worn edges, and with a sharp jerk, the small section of wall came away. Before him lay all of Joey's most prized possessions. There wasn't much, but there was hardly enough space for the meager contents that the hollow already contained. He pulled out about ten dollars in odd crumpled bills that had probably been kept for emergency provisions. Once they had been cleared away, he could see that the only thing left was a pink spiral journal with a heavy cardboard cover.

Kaiba took it out and replaced the money, the wall, and the mirror before sitting down on the bed, holding the weighty notebook in his hands and noting that the cover of it was embellished with tiny roses. If this was Joey's personal diary, he could see why he had taken such pains to keep it out of sight.

He opened the cover, and immediately several loose photographs slid into his lap.

He picked one up. It was a picture of a girl in her school uniform. She had long, wispy auburn hair and shimmering hazel eyes. The next picture was more recent and showed her and Joey at the beach. His arm was slung over her thin bare shoulders, and he was grinning almost manically at the camera, his warm brown eyes sparkling in genuine happiness.

Was she his girlfriend? If she had looked more like a woman than a child, he might, perhaps, have understood the blonde's simple infatuation, but the thought of Joey going out with this little slip of a girl…

He shook it off. It wasn't any of his business. What _was_ his business was that this girl could be a very likely candidate as a person who Joey would run to in a fit of agony. He turned the photographs over, looking for a clue as to where they had been taken.

On the back of the school portriat he found something that surprised him:

'To the best big brother in the world! Love, Serenity.'

So she wasn't his girlfriend after all. His gaze softened slightly on the pictures. Of course, he should have realized…

But he was wasting time. From what he recalled Joey's parents were divorced, and his sister undoubtedly lived with their mother. Their address would have to be somewhere in the house, even if it wasn't in Joey's room.

In the meantime he ought to be sure that he had gotten everything out of this room that he needed. His hands continued to flip idly through the photographs. They were mostly the same people: Joey, a slightly taller brunette with his hair formed to a lethal point, a pretty but no-nonsense sort of girl with her chocolate-colored locks cut short, and a diminutive boy with ridiculous tri-colored hair and wide violet eyes.

This motley crew was obviously Joey's group of friends. They were nothing like the gang of rough-and-tumble street thugs that he had mentally associated with Joey.

He tossed the pictures aside and focused his attention on the notebook. It actually looked more like a planner than a notebook, really, with a calendar that was several years old. It, like the rest of the planner, was devoid of any writing. Until he hit the address directory, that is.

Each name and address had been penned by a different hand, suggesting that the book had been passed around so that everyone could fill out their own section. He had the feeling that this had been the girl's idea. It would certainly explain the feminine appearance of the organizer.

"_Look what I got, guys! This way we won't have to keep looking each other up in the phonebook all the time_," he imagined a vaguely feminine voice exclaiming brightly.

"_But…pink_?" a Joey-ish voice protested weakly.

"_Well…I like them. Besides, they were on sale. Now let's all trade so we can get everybody's address!"_

Kaiba snapped out of his conjured daydream and sharply scolded himself. He was wasting time again. When had he begun picking up these bad habits?

He stuffed the photos back inside the planner and stood up, quickly surveying the room to make sure that everything was in place. Then he stepped into the hallway, past the still dozing drunk on the couch, and out the hole in the wall where the door used to be.

He skimmed down the steps and over the driveway and opened the door of the car. Then he sat down, reopening the key to his success to choose his destination.

Now that he could see the address of Joey's sister, he could tell that it was probably too far from the city for Joey to think of going there first. It was still a strong possibility, but he would save it for last. That left him with three choices.

He ran his finger down the short list and it stopped at _Yugi Motou, Kame Game Shop_. It was as good as any.

He tossed the journal into the passenger seat and started the engine, smirking to himself. He had Joey cornered. The notebook was all he needed. He now knew the exact location of every place that Joey would think of going to; it was only a matter of picking the right one.

* * *

Joey suppressed a loud yelp as his body was speared with a hundred thousand tiny slivers courtesy of the prickly evergreen bush that he was fortunate enough to land in. 

He cursed global warming and city beautification. When he got back to Domino he was going to hack down every plant in sight.

_If_ he got back to Domino.

He tumbled out of the bush and onto the concrete, groaning. What now? Where was he? Did it matter? He had to try to escape again, but he couldn't hope to be as lucky as the first time.

His body protested as he slowly picked himself up. He hadn't noticed it while he was still charged with adrenaline, but his muscles were weak and shaking as if he hadn't used them in a long time. Each dragging step was a challenge, and by the time he had made it to the end of the block he was nearly spent.

He leaned forward and panted, trying desperately to keep what little balance he had left. It was then that he saw the glowing white sign in front of the hospital. '_Domino City University Medical Center_.'

'No way. No fucking way.'

He had been in Domino City this whole time? What had he been doing at the hospital? _Had he just seriously flung himself out of a six story window?_

His shaking knees finally gave way, and he grabbed a nearby lamppost to save himself from collapsing on the ground.

He took deep breaths.

'Okay, what do I do now?' he wondered.

Could he just turn himself in at the front desk? _"Sorry, I thought I was somewhere else, so I jumped out the window to escape. Could you tell me what I'm here for?"_

­_That_ would go over well. But it wasn't like he had much of a choice, right? After all, if he was in Domino…

_If_ he was in Domino. But why was he doubting it? There was no way…

Mai's words echoed eerily in his mind. "In Hell there's always a way. Remember that."

What if he _was_ in Hell? What if it was all a setup, a trap to make sure he wouldn't try to escape again by making him think he was in a real hospital? How would he be able to tell for sure?

His feet instinctively pointed themselves in another direction. He took a deep gulp of air, let go of the lamppost, and ran, trying hard to ignore the complaints of his tired, aching body. He had to know, and he could think of only one place where he could go to find out.

'Please let this be real. Please let Yugi be home.'

* * *

Voices. There were voices everywhere, talking gibberish, though whether it was directed at him or at each other he wasn't sure. Through the darkness he couldn't see where they were coming from, but they surrounded him, taunted him with their nearness. What was wrong with him? Why could he hear things that weren't there? 

"Please stop! Go away!" he pleaded again and again. But the voices only seemed to grow louder and more excited once they realized that he could hear them.

Then came laughter. It started lowly, but quickly escalated to the deranged cackling of a dangerous lunatic.

He tried to shout, to plead for it to stop, but his words were drowned in the laughter almost even before they left his mouth.

Then from all around him came his voice. Not, of course, his _own_ voice, but the other voice, the voice that stayed with him without belonging to him.

"That's _enough_!" it barked.

Yugi shot forward and looked around, frightened and panting. It was dark, but he could still make out the shapes of the familiar objects around him. There was his bookshelf that held more games than books, and there was his desk with the pieces of a half-finished puzzle carelessly scattered about it.

His muscles relaxed and his breathing eased to a regular pace. He was in his own room, on his own bed. It had all just been some weird dream.

He closed his eyes and crumpled back onto the bed with a sigh of relief. "Just a bad dream," he murmured to himself.

With a sleepy smile on his face he gently tilted his head upward and lazily opened his eyes to look out the skylight for one last goodnight to the stars.

Instead, his eyes met with the shadowy figure of a man staring right back at him through the window.

Yugi screamed.


	9. Chapter 9

Author's Notes: Hey, look! An update that didn't take, like, a month! You'd better take shelter; it must be the end of the world!

Please don't be confused by the start of this chapter; it's sort of meant to tie this in with the previous two chapters so that you remember that this is all happening in one night, but more importantly it's to help develop Yami's character, since we don't see or hear much of him, being invisible and all. It may seem a little out of sequence, but when it goes back to Yugi we're right back where last chapter ended, so it's all good.

Also, I've decided I like writing small fight scenes for Joey and Kaiba. All the tension, but with a clean feeling. Really, though, is there any way that Joey and Kaiba could fight _without_ any sort of vaguely sexual undertones?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

Thanks, as always, to those of you who reviewed!

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! or Hell or Purgatory. So basically I own nothing worthwhile.

* * *

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter IX

The spirit was troubled. How had Yugi been able to see Bakura? He had pondered this the whole rest of the walk home from the hospital. Though he wouldn't put it past him, he was almost certain that Bakura had not meant for Yugi to see him; he had seemed just as genuinely surprised as he was. And then, of course, he _had_ to come over and start talking, right in front of that other human who _couldn't_ see him. Idiot.

He floated through the door of Yugi's bedroom as the boy closed it shut behind him, vaguely wondering when they had gotten home. His spiritual body had gotten so used to following Yugi that it was almost as if he was attached to him by an invisible lead. Very often he would snap out of his thoughts and not know where they were. Yugi could have just gotten home and gone straight to his bedroom, or he could have mulled around the living room for a few hours and played video games, and the spirit wouldn't have noticed the difference. As long as Yugi was safe, time didn't matter much to him.

Yugi went to the bathroom to take a shower and the spirit lay on Yugi's bed as was his custom. He didn't need to follow him _that_ closely, and he could always be there in an instant if he sensed that something was wrong.

He was still concerned, though. If Yugi could see Bakura did that mean that Yugi could see _him_ as well? He didn't think so. He had been there for almost a year, and Yugi had never shown awareness of his presence. Maybe he should test this, though. Just in case. But how to do it…?

Yugi reentered the room with a wet towel wrapped around his small waist, dripping water onto the navy blue carpet. A test? Who was he kidding? If Yugi could walk into his room half-naked and not notice a gorgeous man lying on his bed, then he _obviously_ couldn't see him.

The spirit rolled onto his side so that he was facing the other direction as Yugi chose a pair of pajamas from his dresser. And, like every night, he convinced himself that he wasn't really staring indecently if it was just Yugi's reflection in the mirror. He was just watching. Like he was supposed to.

Yugi threw himself onto his bed, stretching out unknowingly beside his guardian. The spirit rolled over again, this time so that he was lying on his stomach with his elbow propped up on the pillow so that his chin was resting on his hand.

Yugi was staring upward, but not through the skylight. His eyes were vacant. He was thinking hard about something. Worrying. About his encounter with Bakura? Or about…

Joey.

Something twisted inside of him. He liked Joey. But at the same time, he didn't like him. It didn't have anything to do with the type of person he was; Joey was fairly likable, if a little slow at times. It was more like…he resented him.

Out of all of his friends Yugi lavished the most attention on Joey. Yugi hardly ever had sleepovers with Tristan or went places alone with Tea, though such invitations were always gladly accepted, but with Joey these were common occurrences. They hardly ever seemed to do things without each other. They were more than friends; they were _best_ friends.

He could never remember having friends, but then again he couldn't remember much about his life before Yugi at all. It had never bothered him, though. Not until Yugi had been put in his safekeeping.

The teenage boy shifted under the covers fitfully. He had gone to sleep while his guardian hadn't been paying attention, but even in his dreams he seemed to be distressed. He wanted to comfort him, but he didn't have a way to. He had never been given one. It was not part of his job.

There was a faint tapping on the skylight above them. He paid it no heed and continued to gaze down at his charge, wishing, not for the first time, that he could defeat whatever plagued him in his sleep, but he could only save Yugi from real danger, not from the horrors that lurked within his own mind.

The tapping got louder, but he continued to ignore it. It was probably just some small animal that had scampered onto the glass. Whatever it was, it meant Yugi no harm.

But it continued. And it got louder…and louder…

"That's _enough_!" he barked sharply, whipping around so that he could face it.

It was a person, waving at him and grinning in a ridiculous way that was not entirely unfamiliar. He squinted. It was Joey, come to cause Yugi more pain and suffering, no doubt, by escaping from his hospital bed in the middle of the night and quite possibly endangering his life.

He lay back down and crossed his arms over his chest, glaring through the pane of glass. Joey's grin faltered slightly as he realized that that was all he was going to do. He had obviously expected him to open the window.

As if he was going to give Yugi a reason to fret over Joey even more. Hmph. Hopefully if he was left out in the cold for long enough he would get the common sense to return to the hospital where he belonged and in the future refrain from risking his existence to send his "best friend" into a panic attack.

Joey stared down at him dejectedly like a little lost puppy who had finally found his way home only to be kicked in the ribs and to have the door slammed in his face. He had clearly come here with the best of intentions. The spirit's glare softened slightly. It wasn't Joey's fault that he hadn't thought this through. That was just the way he was.

He still wasn't going to open the window, though.

Fortunately for Joey, it was just then that Yugi woke up, saw him, and screamed.

* * *

Yugi screamed. 

The figure up there was waving at him frantically, and through the pane he could hear a familiar but muffled voice shouting, "No, no! It's okay! It's just me! Look Yug', it's me!"

Was that Joey? It _was_ Joey! What was he doing here? He wished he hadn't cried out, but he hadn't immediately recognized the murky figure crouching over his window. How was he supposed to?

He was distracted as a series of loud thumps approached his room. Someone was running up the stairs.

He tried to motion to Joey to be quiet.

"Yugi? Yugi! Are you all right?"

The door to the bedroom opened just a crack and a pair of wary violet eyes peered inside.

"Yeah, Gramps. I-I…I just had a bad dream. Sorry."

"Are you sure you're all right? Do you want me to stay for a bit?"

Yugi frowned slightly. He usually didn't mind his grandfather's company, but if he stayed then he might not be able to see Joey.

"Grandpa, I'm fine. It was just a bad dream. I'm not seven, you know," he said.

"Well…you did just scream like a seven-year old girl…" the old man teased, looking somewhat relieved.

Yugi flushed. "Grandpa! I don't scream like _any_ sort of girl!"

"Hmm. Well, if you're sure you're all right…"

"I'm positive."

"Goodnight, Yugi."

"'Night, Gramps."

The door clicked shut. Yugi held his breath.

The door opened again. "Yugi, are you _sure_—"

"Grandpa!"

"All right, all right! That's what an old man gets for trying to help his grandson." His voice became muffled and faded as the door closed again, this time with finality.

Yugi waited until he heard another door open and close downstairs, and then he grabbed the chair from his desk and positioned it under the skylight. He jumped on top of it and balanced on his tiptoes to reach the latch on the window.

"Phew. Close one, huh?" asked Joey, grinning as he lowered himself onto the chair. He was still wearing his hospital gown, though it was dirtied and torn as if it had been used as a costume in some zombie horror flick.

"Joey, what are you doing here?" Yugi hissed. "You're supposed to be in the hospital!" He was only half angry, though. The other half of him was elated. Joey was okay! The coma had only been temporary!

Joey seemed to sense this suppressed excitement and his smile broadened. "What, ya ain't happy ta see me? Well I'm happy ta see _you_! Ya don't know how good it is ta—ta be _alive_!"

He lifted Yugi off of the ground in a bear hug, swaying him from side to side.

"Augh! Jo-_ey_!" the shorter boy protested good-naturedly.

Laughing, he dropped Yugi on the bed and plopped down beside him.

"You know we're going to have to return you…" Yugi said solemnly.

"When I woke up I thought I was in Hell," he breathed, looking distant. He stiffened slightly as the words left his mouth.

Yugi nodded sympathetically. He would hate to wake up in a strange room all alone in the dark.

"How did you get out?" he asked, trying to envision Joey's _Mission Impossible_-esque escape from "Hell."

"I…uh…I jumped," said Joey, wincing as he remembered the prickly bushes that had broken his fall.

"You jumped? You mean out the--?"

"Da window? Yeah…"

"Joey, you could have killed yourself!" Yugi exclaimed, horrified.

Joey winced again. "Yeah, don't remind me. So how long've I been out? A coupla days?"

Yugi raised his eyebrows. "More like a couple of weeks! You had everyone worried sick! Your mom and sister come everyday, and Tristan and Tea when they don't have work, and I practically live there except they don't let me in most of the time. Even Mom and Gramps are worried about you. Even," he paused dramatically, "Even the teachers at school are worried about you!"

"Even da teachers? No kidding…" He whistled lowly. "I must be in pretty bad shape, huh?"

"I should say so!"

"And I need a bath. My hair's a mess!"

"…"

"What?"

"Joey, your hair's always a mess…"

The blonde scowled as he fingered his locks critically. "Yeah, well usually it's a sexy mess. Right now it's just greasy 'n…not sexy."

"O-kay, Joey," said Yugi doubtfully. "I guess you can wash your hair before you go if it bothers you that much. I mean, you _could_ take a shower, but I don't think I have any clothes that would fit you," he explained apologetically.

"Whadaya mean, 'before you go'?" Joey questioned, alarmed.

"I told you, Joey, we have to return you to the hospital," Yugi replied patiently.

"Well, dat don't gotta mean right dis instant!"

"Joey, they're probably worried!" Yugi protested. "They might be looking for you! What if they call the police? Unconscious people aren't supposed to just get up and run away in the middle of the night, you know."

Joey sighed. "I guess…"

He stretched out on Yugi's bed, placing one hand behind his head and the other on his stomach, and then he turned his head towards Yugi, smiling. "Can a guy at least get sumtin' ta eat here? I'm starvin'!"

Yugi smiled back, but was hesitant. "I dunno, Joey. They've been feeding you intravenously. Solid food might make you sick. Liquids should be okay, though…"

Joey popped up brightly. "Great! I could sure use a chocolate shake!"

Yugi laughed. "Would chocolate milk be okay? Gramps might have a heart attack if he came downstairs to yell at me for using the blender and found _you_ walking around."

Summoning as much strength as he could, Joey pulled himself to his feet and grabbed Yugi by the wrist.

"Lead me to it!"

* * *

It had taken him quite some time to find the Kame Game Shop. It had been a long while since he had navigated the streets of Domino City, and though the small shop was situated on a corner, it was so carefully tucked away amidst the apartment buildings and convenience stores, that he ended up passing it several times. He wondered how it managed to do any business at all in such an elusive location. 

He pulled the car up to the game shop and defiantly parked it on the wrong side of the street and against the normal flow of traffic. He relished these small revenges. Grabbing Joey's notebook off of the passenger seat, he stepped out of the car and onto the pavement, tucking the journal under his belt as he stood up.

He studied the layout of the building for the best way to infiltrate it. He had to first find some way of determining whether or not Joey was here, and presumably the best way to go about doing that was to be invited inside.

He straightened his trench coat a little and rapped sharply at the glass door. His mind began to prepare a few different explanations for his presence. No one was just going to say "Come in!" when someone knocked on their door in the middle of the night. He would have to make himself visible to whoever answered and he would be expected to reasonably account for his being there.

Perhaps he would present himself a law enforcement officer pursuing a fugitive. Technically it wasn't a lie, so _technically_ he would still be abiding by the regulations. Because he _was_ acting as an enforcer of the law. He didn't have to say _which_ law unless it was asked of him.

Of course, there was always that other little problem, the one that had made them reluctant to even train him for field work; he might be recognized. More people knew the name Seto Kaiba than the face of the man behind it, but, still, this was _his_ town. He had practically owned this city, and ten years wasn't a very long time for people to forget something like that, especially when Kaiba Corp. was still a thriving enterprise.

Through the glass, he could see the door at the back of the shop open just a crack, and the tall man knocked again, coolly and professionally.

He would have to do something about a badge…there was always the identification in his wallet. If he could flash it quickly enough so that they wouldn't be able to see that it read 'Purgatory…'

A head popped out from behind the door, a soft light from the room behind it revealing a glowing halo of golden hair. For an instant, narrowed brown eyes peered at him from under the tangle of shimmering gold threads. The eyes widened in horror, and in another instant the door was slammed shut.

Kaiba blinked slowly as his mind processed the scene he had just witnessed. He certainly hadn't expected a Hell-like spread of puzzles and twists, but, really, something this easy was almost insulting to his intelligence.

* * *

"Joey, I got your mil—Joey?" Yugi called into the empty hall where he _thought_ he had left Joey. 

Yugi let out a small yelp as a pale arm reached out from the darkness and grabbed the back of his collar, pulling him flat against the wall.

"Shh…"

"Joey? Don't scare me like that! Why'd you turn the lights out? I think I spilled most of your milk…" whispered the shorter boy, squinting upward through the darkness as he tried to make out where his friend's face was.

"S'alright. Don't talk," Joey replied. His voice was strained.

They both jumped as there was a sharp tapping sound from the other room.

Yugi felt his pulse begin to race. Burglars? Gangsters?

"J-Joey…I'm going to go c-call the police," he stammered.

Joey grabbed his shoulder and forced him back. "No," he pleaded. "Don't do dat. Won't do any good. Just…just sit tight 'n maybe he'll go away."

Yugi was puzzled. This wasn't like Joey at all. Joey never hid from a fight. In fact, he had been worried about finding a way to _stop_ Joey from going out there in his weakened condition.

And had Joey had said that maybe _he_ would go away? It was only one person…did Joey know _him_? What if…

Yugi's eyes widened in realization. _What if it was someone from the hospital?_

Why hadn't he seen it before? Joey obviously didn't want to go back to the hospital. He had kept skirting around the subject and making excuses to stay longer. Was he afraid? Of what? _'When I woke up I thought I was in Hell.'_ Joey had never liked hospitals…

But he _had_ to go back! The doctors still needed to find out what was wrong with him and make sure that he never got that sick again! He was okay now, but next time…what if he never woke up?

Yugi broke away from his friend's grip and darted into the other room. He usually would have been no match for Joey's reflexes, but right now Joey was exhausted, and the smaller boy had taken him completely off-guard.

"Yugi!" he shouted, reaching out to grab the back of the other boy's collar. His hand caught only empty air.

'I'm sorry, Joey,' Yugi thought as he ran towards the door and the shadowy figure on the other side. 'But this is for your own good!'

* * *

A small form was rapidly approaching on the other side. About time. Kaiba glanced at his wristwatch. With any luck he would be back in Purgatory before the sun came up. It was always better to travel and make negotiations under the cloak of darkness. Awkward questions tended arise when people saw others apparently talking to themselves about selling their soul. 

The diminutive figure with ridiculously large pointy hair opened the door and stared up at him with wide amethyst eyes. He could have been a child, an impression that was supported by his baby blue, star-covered pajamas, but his face held a certain maturity about it that suggested otherwise. Kaiba recognized him from the pictures in Joey's journal. This must be 'Yugi.'

"Are you a doctor?" Yugi asked.

Kaiba was taken aback. This really was too easy. For all his fretting, he didn't even have to provide his own explanation; it had just been handed to him.

"May I come in?" he asked, gesturing widely with his arm. It suggested that he had something important to say, but that he was unwilling to say it out in the open, even if it was in the middle of an empty sidewalk.

Also, it helped him to avoid the question.

"Yugi! Don't invite—" Joey cried, but too late. It didn't matter anyway. Since Joey was just a lost spirit his friend wouldn't be able to see or hear him anyway.

"Um…yeah, sure. Come in," said Yugi, moving aside to let him pass.

"Thank you," he said coolly, stepping inside. He allowed himself a small smirk of triumph in Joey's direction. He had him cornered.

"You're here about Joey, right?"

The smirk faded. "How would—how would you know about that?" he demanded. The words seemed to burst forth from his lips without his permission. He cursed himself mentally. He might have just ruined it! Well, it couldn't be helped now…

But how could he possibly have known that he had come about Joey? Joey had been dead to this world for days, perhaps weeks, and Yugi was under the impression that he was a doctor. What use would a corpse have for a doctor?

"You're not mad are you?" Yugi asked anxiously. "I mean, it's not like we planned it or anything. I think he just woke up and got scared because he didn't know where he was. And he doesn't like hospitals much…"

Hospitals? 'Woke up'? But that was impossible!

"Yugi, _that_ ain't a doctor!" Joey announced dramatically, pointing directly at Kaiba's chest.

"Jo-_ey,_" the shorter boy remonstrated, tugging on one of his golden bangs in annoyance. "Of course he's a doctor." He turned towards Kaiba. "Aren't you?"

"You can hear him…" Kaiba murmured disbelievingly.

The violet-eyed boy shrunk away from the taller man. "Of course I can hear him! He's right there!" His voice was strained and bordering on high-pitched, almost hysterical as he pointed at Joey, or at least where he thought Joey was.

'Not again,' Yugi thought frantically. 'Oh, God, not again!' Was he seeing and hearing things again? What if Joey really wasn't there at all? What if he was just some sort of deluded fantasy? What if he really was crazy?

"I'm not crazy! I'm _not_ crazy!" Yugi insisted, shaking his head wildly. Not, not, _not_ crazy!

"Yug', get a grip on yerself!" Joey hissed, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him. "I'm here! I'm real! An' I'm not goin' anywhere, no matta _what_ dis jerk says!" He lifted his head to glare at Kaiba.

For once Kaiba didn't glare back. He couldn't. He was lost in a mess of jumbled, incomplete thoughts. What the hell was going on here? None of it made sense! Unless…unless…

No, it was impossible! He wouldn't believe it. There had to be some other explanation, something he was missing.

"You're dead, Wheeler," Kaiba asserted. If he could just ingrain that one point, then maybe everything else would fall into place.

"Dead? DEAD?! How's _dis_ fer 'dead_'_, Kaiba!" Joey snarled, lunging towards the blue-eyed man with one arm pulled back, his hands balled into tight fists.

Kaiba remained unfazed as the blow whizzed harmlessly past his ear, but the full-body missile that was Joey was harder to dodge. In an instant he was plastered to the ground with Joey on top of him, fist poised to deliver another blow, and his eyes promised that this one wouldn't miss.

He felt Joey's muscles tighten as he leaned into him, giving this one punch all of the strength he could muster.

He almost felt bad about reaching up so effortlessly and grabbing the blonde's wrist, effectively stopping the blow in midair.

He watched the triumph in those brown eyes turn into confusion, which slowly gave way to anger. Joey twisted his arm wildly, trying to free his wrist from the death lock that his hand had on it.

"Kaiba! You, nngh! Sonuvabitch!"

In an almost dream-like trance his other hand reached up towards Joey's chest. Already he could feel the warmth radiating from him, and he could see the erratic movement of his chest with every shaking breath he took. If Joey was alive…but of course he wasn't…

The teenager above him froze as he placed his hand right over his heart. Every pulsing beat was now impressed against his palm. But it wasn't enough.

He closed his eyes, and then slowly…very slowly, his fingers passed through the solidity of Joey's chest and delved into the very depths of his existence.

"K-Ka-Kai-ba!" Joey whimpered.

He drew a sharp breath as his cobalt blue eyes flew open, and he jerked his hand back, at the same time releasing his other hand's hold on the blonde's wrist.

Joey was very much alive.

* * *

"Fuck, Kaiba…what da…hell didja…do ta me?" Joey groaned, his chest heaving as he gasped for air. 

He cupped his hands over his heart, half expecting blood to come flowing out of the places where Kaiba's fingers had been. All he could feel, though, was the dangerous thudding of his heart against the walls of his chest.

"Fuuuck…" he moaned, rolling off of the taller man who was now struggling to slide himself out from underneath him.

"Joey! Joey? Are you all right?" asked Yugi, who until now had stood petrified in horror as he witnessed what had happened. He ran towards his friend, falling on his knees beside him. "What did he do to you?" he murmured, placing his hand over the same spot where Kaiba's had been.

Joey moaned again, and Yugi quickly pulled his hand back. He felt a shadow fall on them, and he turned his head to see 'Kaiba' standing over them.

The short teenager stood up protectively in front of his best friend, glaring up at the towering blue-eyed man. He wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but this man had just hurt Joey! Undeterred, Kaiba merely gazed over his head to meet Joey's pained brown eyes.

"You're alive," he said flatly, crossing his arms over his chest as he stared down at the blonde.

"'A course I'm alive!" Joey snapped.. "_Dat's_ what I've been tryin' ta tell ya! Dat's what I've been tryin' ta tell _everyone_ dis whole time! Ya didn't have ta go messin' around wit my heart ta figure _dat_ one out, Einstein!" He was annoyed, but also half relieved. At least _someone_ believed him.

Kaiba shrugged stiffly. "Well what did you expect? Half of the people who die insist on believing that they're not dead at all."

"So whada we do now?" Joey asked, gritting his teeth as he tried to push himself up off of the ground.

"Now," said Kaiba bitterly as he whipped out his cell phone, "we have a little chat with Death."

Yugi and Joey exchanged nervous glances. Neither of them liked the sound of that.


	10. Chapter 10

Author's Notes: ZOMG!!! SUMMER HOMEWORK!!! That's right, kids, it's that time of year again! Less than one week 'til school starts, and I still have to write two essays and a whole bunch of Chem problems! Craptacular!

Anyway, I'm sorry if I didn't get to reply to your review, but as you may have guessed (hint, hint, look up) things have been a little chaotic. So this is just a collective "Thank You So Much OMG, Squee!" to everyone who reviewed! It's really very motivational, and I don't know what I would do without you guys.

And this is just something I'd like to make clear now: Death does NOT make mistakes. Ooh, cryptic, I know. You'll get it. Hopefully.

Please enjoy!

* * *

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter X

"Brring! Brring!" Chirped the old-fashioned black phone at the edge of the teakwood desk.

Ryou looked up helplessly at the demons still mulling around his office. They were waiting for clearance to officially take him into custody. It probably wouldn't take long; after all, if they thought that he had aided in the escape of a fugitive…

But as long as he was still here, they were forced to put him to work. After all, he was the only one who knew how to operate half of the equipment here and fill out the forms properly. He had apprenticed for years, and his job was not the sort of thing that a horde of unskilled demons could easily pick up on in only a few short hours. Not that they had tried very hard.

But business had to go on, and he was somehow expected to continue as usual.They had given him orders to issue as many emergency visas as possible, and he had been obliged to open the portal countless times. He was not to move or speak unless he was told to do so.

"Brring! Brring!"

But no one had told him what to do if the phone rang. _Usually_ he would answer it, but _usually_ he was allowed to move and speak of his own free will. Would answering be considered "business as usual" or would it be considered an impertinent defiance of direct orders?

"Brring! Brring!"

He looked around. No one was paying attention the phone or to him. It wouldn't hurt, would it? And he would hate to be accused of not doing his job properly, not now, not when it was so critical that he have as many people on his side as possible. He gently raised the phone from its cradle and placed it against his ear, hoping desperately that it wasn't the call that would send him packing from this office forever.

"The Gates."

"Ryou? I need you to patch me through to someone."

Chocolate brown eyes widened in surprise. The voice on the other end was cool, crisp, and unmistakable.

"Mr. Kaiba?" he asked in a hushed voice so as not to attract unwanted attention.

"Yes. I need to speak to Death."

To Death? Ryou was puzzled. Was this standard procedure? Surely he didn't need confirmation that the fugitive was actually dead? Unless…but that was absolutely unprecedented! It would change everything! His eyes gleamed hungrily with hope. It might explain how the portal had opened of its own accord. He would no longer be considered a dangerous accomplice to an orchestrated escape!

"I see. I'll need a few seconds to connect you to his office…."

"No, you don't understand," Kaiba said evenly, as if he had expected this. "I want to speak to Death, _personally_."

Ryou felt his hand quaver as he almost dropped the phone in shock.

"I-I'm sorry. I don't think I could have heard you properly. You want to speak to Death _himself_?" he whispered hoarsely in disbelief.

"That's what I said." Kaiba replied with a touch of impatience.

"I-I I'll try, but he isn't usually disposed towards taking calls…He won't like it…"

"He's not going to like what I have to say to him either. Just put me through. If there's any trouble it will be my soul not yours."

There was a long, thoughtful pause and then a rush of static as Ryou sighed into the receiver in defeat. Kaiba wasn't going to give up if he told him "No." He pulled out an ancient directory bound in peeling leather, and ran his finger down the list of names written in the spidery hand of his predecessor until he reached the one marked 'Death.'

He hesitated as his fingers hovered over the rotary dial of the phone.

"Ryou…"

"As you wish, Mr. Kaiba."

He dialed the number.

* * *

"Please...don't take me! I have a wife, kids…" 

The man sank to his knees onto the worn ground of the alleyway and into the slowly spreading pool of blood lying next to his body. "I'll-I'll do better, I promise! I swear if you just let me go—"

"It's not my choice," the man in the dark, hooded cloak explained, indifferently polishing the dagger end of his golden rod with one of his sleeves. "If you're in the Book you're dead, and if you're dead…"

"I'M NOT DEAD!"

The cloaked man heaved a sigh as he crossed his well-bronzed arms over his chest. Some people just didn't have the strength and good sense to leave this earth with dignity.

"Hmph. Do you know how often I get that? Just go through the damn rift."

"But I—"

"Deedle deedle dee-dee deedle!"

Both men froze for a moment. Then, the hooded man reached inside his cloak and extracted a small black cell phone as he simultaneously kicked the groveling mortal into the rift he had created over the dead man's body.

"No, don't—AHHHHHH!"

He waited until the man's desperately clawing hand was finally enveloped by the darkness, and then he flipped the phone open.

"Hello?"

"Hello, er…Death…sir," came the breathless voice from the other end.

"Well, what did you want?"

"I, er…Mr. Kaiba would like to converse with you. I have him on the other line."

At this he was puzzled. Even though comradery was traditional between their positions, he and Kaiba had never gotten along, and summons always came through Isis. What would Kaiba want with him?

"Put him through."

"Yes, sir." He heard a soft click and then, "Alright Mr. Kaiba, go ahead."

"Death?"

There was another click as their go-between hung up his phone, and then there was a long pause.

"You're not Kaiba."

"Probably not the one you're thinking of, Malik, but I _am_ Kaiba."

"You're not—My name—how do you--?" he sputtered.

"I am Seto Kaiba, Head of Technology at Purgatory. You are Malik Ishtar, the Grim Reaper, the Angel of Death, Death personified."

"Since you know me so well, you should also know that this line is for restricted Board use only!" Malik snapped, not at all liking the impertinence of this man. "Talk to my office. I'm reaping, and I don't have time to—"

"Then make time. This is important. Someone on your side made a mistake. A big mistake."

"More like a freakin' _gynormous_ mistake," corrected a muffled voice from the background.

Malik's lilac eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?" he hissed dangerously. "We don't make _mistakes_ in _my_ department. It doesn't happen."

"Fine. Then someone _deliberately_ sent a living soul to the afterlife. Does that suit you better?" Kaiba retorted.

"_What_?"

"I didn't think so."

"Before you go around accusing people, I want to know what sort of proof you have!" Malik spat, gripping the small phone so tightly that it was a miracle that it didn't burst in his hand.

"Proof? I felt him. Some of his heartstrings are broken."

Malik scoffed. "That's normal. He's had a little trauma, lost a loved-one, maybe had a near-death experience…he'll heal."

"We're not talking about one or two that just snapped from stress," said Kaiba sharply. "I'm telling you that I felt him, and what I felt was the connection between his body and his soul almost completely severed. It's trying to heal itself now, but a few hours ago only a little cluster of maybe ten heartstrings would have been the difference between him and a corpse."

There was another long pause. "You're sure?"

"Do I sound _unsure_? His name's Joseph Wheeler and I saw him in Hell. His body was in a coma at a local hospital. Now he's escaped and come back to this world."

"The portal…"

"The portal was not designed to have a predetermined response to the connection between a soul and a body because when someone is dead such a connection ceases to exist. It seems likely that he only got out because his body was pulling him through from the other side. That's just a hypothesis, though. If whoever reaped his soul is still out there, perhaps he or she will be sending along a few more living souls so we can conduct an experiment," Kaiba said caustically.

Malik felt the blood rush to his face in fury. Someone, _someone_ would be paying for this. Reapers, or Rare Hunters as they preferred, were not allowed to settle personal vendettas with their authority. Attempts were not unheard of, but for someone to actually be able to carry through…it had the first time in…millennia! And while he was in power! As if the Board needed more of a reason to doubt his capabilities. Oh, yes, someone would be paying _dearly_ for this. Of course, he would have to prove that this 'Joseph Wheeler' was meant to be alive. If he was supposed to be dead but hadn't been reaped properly…that would be a whole different mess entirely….

"How long ago was this?" he asked.

"About two weeks."

Two weeks…Joseph Wheeler... 

"Hold on," he said, slipping the still open phone into the pocket of the khaki cargos beneath his cloak.

He abandoned the body of the man that lay lifeless in the alleyway and walked vaguely toward the motorcycle that he had parked on the side of the street. The pale gold of it gleamed in the light of the streetlamp overhead, and he used this light to unstrap a massive object that was belted to the side of the motorcycle. It was a book. In fact, it was _The_ Book.

Most Rare Hunters got to carry legal pads that automatically updated themselves with the next person that that specific Rare Hunter was supposed to go to; Malik was not so lucky. As Death himself, he was charged with the honor of lugging around the giant comprehensive record of human demise. Consequently, it took him a lot longer to find his assignments, but while he was taking the time to look up his next charge, he could also make sure that the others were doing their own jobs at an acceptable pace. Written on the thin, ancient pages that lie within were the names of almost every human that had ever, did, and would exist. Next to each name, in a language that had long been lost to the modern world, was the exact time, location, and cause of the person's death, as well as the name of the soul assigned to reap them. It was thousands of times faster and more accurate than the computers used to simulate it for easy access. Using this he would be able to tell if this man was really supposed to be dead or alive.

He dragged the hefty gold tome from the bike and deposited it with a loud 'WHUMP' on the sidewalk before seating himself cross-legged in front of it.

He found the shimmering gold ribbon that marked the page they were on now and opened the book to a point several pages in front of it. That would be about two weeks ago. He put one finger on the name column and said clearly, "Joseph Wheeler." The pages began to flip by themselves to the nearest match. He waited briefly as the Book settled on a page. About half-way down a name glowed for a second and then returned to normal. The name was right, the time frame was right, now to check the location.

He pulled the still-connected phone out of his pocket and put it against his ear. He could hear people arguing in the background.

"—ditched us. Are ya sure we can trust—"

"Do you know where he was?" Malik interrupted.

"What?" asked Kaiba. He sounded aggravated.

Malik repeated the question.

There was a pause and the sound of muffled voices as Kaiba consulted with someone.

"Domino City."

He checked the book. This was the man. He was definitely supposed to have died after being hit by a car. Malik was slightly relieved. It was still a problem, but it was only a mistake in reaping, not corruption infiltrating the ranks. That didn't mean that he was going to go easy on whoever it was, though; reaping required precision, and this kind of slip-shod work was unacceptable. He ran his eye across the row to the name of the Rare Hunter who had been assigned to him.

_Malik Ishtar._

* * *

Kaiba cursed as he snapped his cell phone shut.

"What is it?" inquired Yugi anxiously.

"He hung up."

"Whaddaya mean he hung up?!" Joey yelped, panicking. "Can't ya get him back?"

"I would try," said Kaiba calmly, "if I could see any good that it would do."

"Any…good…!" Joey sputtered, throwing his hands in the air. "Well, what are we supposed ta do _now_?"

"Now we wait."

"Wait fer what?!"

"If I knew, then I probably wouldn't be here; I'd be heading back to my office. As it is…" he trailed off.

Yugi leaned against a glass counter displaying various trading cards and used it to slide himself down the floor. He curled his knees to his chest and let one hand busy itself fiddling with a piece of dark blue carpet fuzz.

"As long as…as long as we're…waiting, do you think that someone could finally tell me what on earth is going on? Just so I know I'm not…you know, _completely_ insane."

He looked up at the two others pleadingly for an instant and then quickly redirected his attention toward the carpet fuzz. Until now he had just played along, taking everything they said for granted because he trusted Joey. But now...he wanted some real explanation.

He felt Joey plop down beside him, and glanced up, surprised to see him looking very worn as he stretched his bare legs out in front of him, crossing them one over the other. It wasn't the tiredness that surprised him; after all, Joey had had a rough night. It was just that Joey looked so incredibly _old_ right now as he gazed vacantly out the storefront window and towards the heart of the city.

"Well...it's kinda a long story, an' I'm not real sure 'bout most of it," Joey began. "But I tink it started out wit Serenity bein' sick an' me wantin' ta do sumtin'. I was sorta desperate, cuz I just wanted her ta be all right, y'know? So one night, da doorbell rings, 'n dere's dis guy, Bakura, an' he says ta me…"

* * *

"So I finally broke outta da dancin' pit an' den everybody just sorta went crazy an' started shoutin' an' all dese guards came runnin', an' I just sorta followed my instinct, an—"

"You got lost, didn't you?" said Kaiba, interrupting Joey's narration for the first time. He was perched on the glass counter next to the cash register, keeping up an appearance of boredom and mild annoyance as he set a knight in place on the chess board beside him.

Joey scowled. "I wasn't lost! I _knew_ dere had ta be an exit somewhere, and I found it at da end of dat hall!"

"It was luck."

"No it wasn't! It was like…like sumtin' was pullin' me dat way! Anyway, dere was dis door, an' dis giant teleporter thing, an' next ting I know I'm in some bed wearin' a dress wit tubes stickin' outta my arms!"

"So you thought you were still in Hell and escaped, but then you realized that you were in Domino and decided to come here," Yugi concluded.

"Sumtin' like dat,' agreed Joey, too tired to be bothered with the complicated details.

"And now they're trying to find you and bring you back," said Yugi thoughtfully.

"Yeah. Cuz Kaiba here's da only one who believes dat I'm really alive, an' he doesn't wanna call dem off."

"It's not that simple," said Kaiba, absentmindedly resetting the chess board. "This is a major crisis, and I don't have the authority to just "call off" its investigation. We have no choice but to wait for Death to make his move."

"What if da demons find me first?" Joey protested.

"They they'll just have to join our little waiting club," replied Kaiba, pushing forward a white pawn. "Your soul is back in your body now, and only Reapers have the power to displace a soul from a body; otherwise, I would have just spared myself a lot of grief and dragged you to the Board myself."

"What's the Board?" Yugi asked inquisitively.

"It's the governing body of the afterlife," said Kaiba distractedly as he slid another piece across the game board. "Most people don't know it exists, but then again most people don't know much of anything beyond the scope of their own job. It would be a source of extra thought, and free-thinking is not encouraged unless it's work-related."

"So how da _you_ know 'bout it?" challenged Joey.

Kaiba's hand froze in the act of lifting a bishop as he looked up. "Don't you think _someone_ has to keep them up-to-date with technology?"

Yugi suppressed a smile as he pictured Kaiba trying to explain a cell phone to a group of white-robed, wizened old druids.

Joey yawned and stretched himself to full-length on the itchy carpeted floor of the game shop before recalling his current predicament.

"Damn short dress," he muttered, jamming the thin fabric of the hospital gown down over his legs as far as it would go.

Fortunately, Kaiba had been far to engrossed in his game, and Yugi in his thoughts, to notice. The nameless spirit…where was _he_, Joey wondered. He hadn't seen him at all since he had been let inside, but then again he had been so busy that he hadn't been paying much attention. He couldn't be far off, though, since Yugi was here.

He looked around. There he was! He was hovering in the darkened corner behind Kaiba, peering over his shoulder. Apparently he, too, was absorbed by the single-person chess match.

But Kaiba seemed to have come to some sort of standstill. He had turned full towards the board and was now hunched over it, his brow furrowed and his teeth gnawing at his lower lip. It seemed unnatural seeing him at such a disadvantage, even if it was to himself. Joey almost felt guilty, as if he was watching something that he shouldn't have been.

"Knight to E5," suggested Yugi's spirit guardian helpfully, stretching forward with catlike grace onto his stomach so that he head, when rested on his crossed arms, was just above the taller man's shoulder, affording him a better view of the game.

Yugi squeaked and squeezed his eyes shut tight, burying his face into his knees while Kaiba gave a slight start and jerked his head towards the sound. Joey watched his narrowed blue eyes pass right over the other man. Could Kaiba not see him? Either he was even more drained of emotion than Joey had suspected, or he actually couldn't see the man who was now hanging upside-down in front of his face.

* * *

That voice…

Kaiba's eyes searched the room, for what or who, he wasn't sure. He was positive that he had heard a voice; it had been unmistakably clear and direct. Yugi seemed to have heard it too, and judging by his reaction, that was not an entirely uncommon occurrence as far as he was concerned. Joey, meanwhile, was stretched on his back smiling faintly. He was watching something; his eyes were directed towards him, but they didn't seem to be focused on him. There was something or someone else nearby, and Joey could see it.

So why couldn't he?

Spirits of the dead could only hide themselves from humans; souls had no problems sensing and seeing each other instantly. So this…what was it? Since he couldn't see it, it had to be something neither alive nor dead. The idea disgusted his common sense. All things were alive, dead, or inanimate; there was nothing in-between.

Was there?

He cursed himself mentally. Why did he keep doubting things he knew as fact?

Of course, he had "known for a fact" that Joey was dead, and look how _that_ turned out. But this wasn't the same thing. He at least had two plausible explanations for how Joey had ended up in the afterlife; either someone had made a mistake or someone had put him there purposely. The idea that a being could be neither living nor deceased defied all reason; no human error could be involved in something like that.

Satan had probably discovered some way for spirits to shield themselves from each other and had sent some demon to test it by following him as he looked for Joey. That was the only logical explanation. Of course, now that the idiot had given himself away he would be able to report this once he got back. Demons were reowned for their cunning, but obviously not for their common sense.

He interlocked his long, thin fingers and stretched out his arms, cracking his knuckles in the process. Joey jumped and snorted in his sleep before rolling onto his other side. Kaiba gazed down at him from his perch atop the glass counter and then redirected his gaze at the shorter boy still sitting against the other glass display. He, too, was sound asleep, though he was in what looked like a very uncomfortable position.

The tall man hopped down to the floor and slowly walked towards the large storefront window. Through the glass panes he could see a gentle pinkish-orange glow highlighting the skyline of Domino City, the most prominent point of which was his own Kaiba Corp. Tower. It was nearly dawn; he wondered vaguely what they would do when the rest of Yugi's household got up, as he presumably did not live in this game shop all by himself.

He would, he decided, have to keep out of sight. He would naturally be stuck babysitting Joey until Death had reached a conclusion because he was not expected to return empty-handed, but the fewer living who knew of him and the afterlife, the better. Any human who knew what to expect in the afterlife would become an automatic target for demon contractors.

Speaking of which, he should probably get Yugi to sign a deal with Purgatory; Joey already had a contract with Hell, so the demons wouldn't be interested in getting him, but the smaller teenager had just become a prime candidate, and the demons would never leave him alone until he had signed with _someone_. He was fairly certain that Joey would not appreciate their overtures towards his friend, and who knew what kind of chaos he would stir up next. It would be infinitely better to get a contract over and done with as soon as possible.

He gave a sideways glance at Joey's sleeping form. Why not right now? The volatile blonde would be sure to throw a fit if he even so much as mentioned the word "contract," so why not reason with the much milder Yugi and spare himself the frustration?

He carefully picked his way across the room towards the boy and crouched down beside him, bringing himself as close to eye-level as possible with the small slumbering form without compromising his dignity.

Slowly, he reached a hand out towards the boy's small shoulder.

"Yu—"

A shadow fell over them. Kaiba gave a jolt and whipped around, but no one was there. He turned back. In place of the filmy, insubstantial shadow was now the solid, pitch black figure of a man with a small tangled mass of golden, lightning-like tendrils bursting from each palm. The tendrils shot outwards and twined, like slender luminous gold snakes, up his forearms. His fiery red eyes opened unhurriedly, as if demonstrating that he was well aware that his one-member audience was held spellbound, unable to tear his gaze away from the sight before him.

"You," the figure began levelly in a rich, low baritone, "are not mortal. Therefore, I can do as I please with you. Today you learn the consequences of jeopardizing the fates of the worlds."

Kaiba opened his mouth to protest, but his voice was stifled as his spiritual body was slammed against the far wall.


	11. Chapter 11

Author's Notes: Rejoice, for tonight I shall not burden ye with mundane excuses, though there be many!

Thank you's sent in the general direction of everyone who reviewed! I do love reviews…

Speaking of love…I will be working in more romance in the coming chapters. The foundation has been laid, and who better to shed light upon hidden insecurities than the Lord of Darkness himself (hint, hint).

Incidentally, I tend to chose most of my numbers/colors/symbols carefully, though I don't really expect you to analyze them. For goodness sake, it's fanfic, not English Lit! I just do these things because it bothers me if I don't. Stop looking at me like that! The point is, if you ever have any random questions about the story/its universe/whatever, it never hurts to ask. If I really don't know, if I think it will give away too much of the plot, or if it's coming up soon, then I'll tell you so.

…

Just…go read the stupid chapter.

* * *

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter XI

Both Yugi and Joey started awake at the sickening crack as Kaiba quite literally hit the wall. They watched in horror as his body slid down and crumpled to the floor in a heap, making him look like a very long and particularly menacing rag doll.

"What da—"

"Kaiba, are you all right?" Yugi asked anxiously, cutting Joey off.

The taller man made no reply. Right now his mind was focused on one person only, and the individual at whom this lethally concentrated dose of attention was directed was standing across from him with his arms extended outward. The golden tendrils of light exuding from his palms flared and crackled as they charged for another attack. Well, this time he would be ready.

"Hey, what da hell are ya doing?!"

Kaiba blinked as something unexpected stepped into the path of his glare. It took him a few seconds to register that it was Joey standing over him protectively.

"Move, Joey," the shadowed man ordered.

"Not 'til ya tell me what's goin' on," the blonde replied as he slid a foot backwards for better balance. It was a fighting stance, and that, along with his proximity, impressed upon Kaiba just how pathetic his current situation was. He took immediate action to have it remedied; he wasn't going to lay himself at Joey's feet while he played the hero. Using the wall to steady himself, he pushed himself up.

"Joey, _move_."

He was surprised to find that his own voice had meshed with that of his adversary.

"Not 'til—"

"Joey," the shadowy figure said solemnly, "I don't want to hurt you, but if you are protecting _him_ then you have made yourself a threat to Yugi, and _that_ I will not stand for."

"A threat ta…?" The teenager whirled around to face Kaiba. "What were ya tryin' ta do ta Yug'?" he demanded angrily.

"I wasn't—"

"Don't give me dat, Kaiba! Whadja do? He's not all pissed off fer nuthin'!"

"Look, Wheeler, all I did was—"

"—try to endanger his existence, and, therefore, _everyone's_ existence," finished shadowed man.

"Would you let me finish?" Kaiba snapped. "I was not endangering _anyone's_ existence! All I was trying to do was get him to sign a contract!"

Joey tightened his lips and lowered his head slightly, letting his golden hair fall over his face as he clenched his hands into white-knuckled fists.

"You _what_?" he asked. His voice was dangerously low.

Kaiba grit his teeth. This confrontation was what he had been trying to avoid by going to Yugi directly. Had the "other" man known that? Had he done this purposefully to turn Joey against him?

"Would you rather that the demons of Hell got to him first?" he asked sharply.

"Yes...NO! I…Hell…" Joey half answered, his anger giving way to confusion.

"That can't be all you were thinking of…" murmured the man made of darkness. Kaiba turned towards him and noticed that the golden tendrils of light had died down, and that the man's eyes no longer burned like untamed fire; instead, they had taken on a thoughtful red-violet hue. Also, he seemed to have gained more human aspects; though he was still entirely pitch black, his body now had more of a defined form, and he could clearly make out the angular features of his face.

"I'm fairly certain that I know my own thoughts," Kaiba said dryly.

The unearthly man looked deep in thought for a few seconds. "Then you must be hiding something," he said with finality. "There was something…distinctly malevolent about you." Fire began to dance in his irises once again. "I'm not willing to risk my charge to find out how skilled a liar you are!" he shouted, advancing on the taller man.

* * *

"_There was something…distinctly malevolent about you._" 

Yugi felt his breath coming in short, hard pants. Something was happening. He could feel it even if he couldn't see the situation in its entirety.

Joey seemed to be rooted to the spot. His brown eyes were wide with alarm, and he was shifting his weight back and forth, from foot to foot, as if he was unsure of what to do next. Kaiba, meanwhile, was back against the wall, his sharp blue eyes narrowed and focused straight ahead on something, _someone_.

Someone. It was the voice. They had heard it too. They had talked to it, argued with it. For some strange reason it had thought that Kaiba was trying to attack him. They had been talking about contracts. He couldn't see how it was a capital crime for Kaiba to want to ask him to sign one; none of them, he thought bitterly, had even seemed to consider that he could and would just say "no."

"_I'm not willing to risk my charge to find out how skilled a liar you are_!"

Yugi felt his heart dive into his stomach. This wasn't right! He had to stop it! _This wasn't how it was supposed to go!_

'Then how _is_ it supposed to go?' wondered the small part of Yugi's mind that dwelled on his last thought, but most of him had already gone on to focus on how to solve the problem at hand. The voice seemed to want to protect him, but would it listen to him?

There was only one way to find out.

Yugi leapt in front of the towering blue-eyed man with his arms stretched wide apart.

"No, stop it!" he pleaded with the unknown. "I don't want you to hurt him!"

He turned his head to the side and winced, awaiting the inevitable blow that usually followed these words.

For what seemed to be an eternity he could hear only the sound of his own erratic breathing. Then, he felt something completely unexpected. It was the gentle caressing of someone's fingers against the side of his face.

"_Does he really mean that much to you?_"

* * *

He jerked his hand back quickly. 

What in the name of the gods had possessed him to do _that_? He couldn't…it wasn't allowed…Yugi couldn't know he was there.

But did he already?

Was it possible that he had gleaned all the information that he needed to know from Kaiba and Joey's apparently one-sided arguments? Did he only know that something was intent upon attacking the blue-eyed man, or did he know that that something was _him_?

No, that was impossible.

He took a few unsteady steps backwards, feeling, for the first time he could remember, unconfident about his next move. He was supposed to get rid of Kaiba; he knew that much. He even _wanted_ to get rid of the other man. But at the same time…he didn't want to do something that Yugi didn't want him to do. In fact, it seemed safe to assume that if he obliterated Kaiba, Yugi would _hate _him, even if he didn't know who or what he was. He certainly didn't want that.

But Yugi's safety came first. It wasn't a choice to be made by either of them; it was his duty.

He watched Yugi's amethyst eyes open slowly and warily. They met his own for a fraction of a second and then darted away unemotionally. He couldn't see him.

"Are you okay, Kaiba?"

A sudden jolt of energy shot down his arms and seared his palms as the uncontrollable urge to destroy seized him. Yugi had only known the other man for a few short hours, and already he was treating him as if…as if…

Kaiba grunted in assent, still watching him uneasily, and for good reason.

"Is it…? What's it doing?" Yugi asked breathlessly.

_It._ He was an _It_. Inhuman. A shadow. A monster. A nightmare. Oddly enough, this didn't anger him as much as it pained him. He felt the fury inside of him waning.

"He's…" Joey trailed off uncertainly.

Dawn was breaking, and thin rays of sunlight were beginning to stream through the windows of the game shop, but a few shadows still remained. He sank into them, letting his spiritual body meld with the weak, filmy remains of the night's darkness. He could sense Kaiba, and whatever ill-will he had born towards Yugi had long since dissipated. He would allow him to live…for the present. For Yugi, if the other's life was indeed that precious to him.

He felt the tension in the room ease as Joey and Kaiba realized that he was no longer on the offensive. Yugi seemed to sense the change as well; his shoulders relaxed, and he returned Joey's hesitant smile.

"Is it over?" he asked cautiously.

"Yeah," assured Joey. "It's over."

They all turned to stare as chimes clinked against the glass door.

* * *

Ryou heard a familiar whoosh as the portal was opened from the other side and the roar of a vehicle as it entered the garage. He was instantly alert. Someone was coming back. 

An eerie hush had fallen over the demons who had taken to lounging around the portal as they awaited the return of the fugitive. Ryou couldn't remember having sent out anyone who would command that much respect from them; even Kaiba would have been subject to jeering and catcalls. He was nervous. If the demons were afraid…

He heard the slow and steady march of a single pair of footsteps as they mounted the small set of stairs that lead up from the garage to the office.

What little blood he had in his pale face quickly drained away, leaving him faint as a dark-robed man stepped over the bottom edge of the giant circular door and onto the lemon chiffon carpet of his office. Tucked under his right arm was a book of massive proportions, while at his waist hung a long golden rod, the "scythe" of the Reaper.

Ryou felt his breath hitch. This was _Death_.

The robed figure dropped the book with a heavy thud on the top edge of his receptionist desk.

"Pen?" he asked.

Quaking, Ryou handed him a black fountain pen and watched as the man signed a single ancient rune in the entry book.

"When was I last here?" he asked musingly.

"Nine-Nineteen forty-five, sir," Ryou stammered. He remembered it well. In 1945 he hadn't even been an apprentice yet; he had still only been a messenger boy, and he had been delivering a package to this very office when He had arrived. He had thought that that would be the first and last time that he would ever see Death in person. The only reason Death came back was to attend Board meetings; he had never been one to drop in for a visit.

"Mmm…I will be sending one of mine later. Have him directed to the Board room."

Ryou's brow furrowed slightly in confusion. "I'm sorry. You mean you're sending a…?"

"A Rare Hunter? Yes."

Ryou choked. Once a Reaper had taken up his duty, he was prohibited from coming back until he had completed his term. Death, of course, was the only exception since he was a member of the Board and because his term was necessarily of an indefinite length of time. This was...unprecedented, to say the least.

Death gazed around the room from beneath the hood of his cloak. "You two," he said, pointing to two of the demons who were gaping at them. "Take _that_," he jerked his thumb toward the gargantuan book, "to the elevator."

The demons, unused to taking orders from anyone but Satan, looked as if they wanted to protest, but they quickly changed their minds as Death removed the rod from his belt and began to twirl it slowly like a baton in their direction. With a great deal of effort, they hefted the great golden book onto their shoulders and staggered down the hall as Death elegantly swept out of the room, his vast dark cloak billowing out behind him.

Ryou let out a sigh of relief.

* * *

Joey froze as a strange man entered the game shop, his long, dark cloak just skimming the ground as he seemed to float towards him. 

"Joseph Wheeler," he stated in an eerie, resounding voice.

Yugi had latched onto his arm, terrified that whatever new horror this was would take his friend away permanently, but to Joey this setup seemed exasperatingly familiar.

"How many times have I gotta tell you people?" he asked crossly. "_I'm not dead!"_

"I am aware of your situation, Mr. Wheeler," the man said calmly.

"I'm _tellin'_ you I'm—what?"

"I know that you're not dead," the other man replied, carefully simplifying his word choice.

Joey blinked. "Oh. Uh…thanks. So what're ya doin' here?" he asked, slightly bewildered.

"I am here to take you to the Board," the man replied simply.

"The Board?" said Yugi in a hushed voice. "But isn't that…"

"In the realm of the dead," finished Kaiba unperturbedly.

"Uh-uh! No way I'm goin' back dere!" announced Joey. "You can come back when I'm _really_ dead, but until den…"

"I'm afraid, Mr. Wheeler, that you don't have much of a choice in the matter. Death requires your presence in front of the Board, and I am prepared to take you by force, if necessary," the cloaked man said calmly.

Kaiba raised his eyebrows. "You're not Death?" he asked.

"I am Odion, servant of Master Malik," the man replied, letting the hood fall from his face to reveal his stoic, tanned features. He was a remarkable looking man; his thick dark hair was all shaved off save for a long ponytail in the back, and a passage of vertical hieroglyphics ran from the top of his brow to the line of his square jaw. Two steady gray eyes set deep in the bronzed face gazed over all of them with what seemed to be infinite patience.

"Yer different," observed Joey. "You don't look like da guy who killed me."

Odion inclined his head slightly. "That may be so. I was merely sent to retrieve you. Mr. Kaiba…?"

The tall man walked over, seeming to recognize what was required of him without the need for words. Before Joey had time to react, Kaiba's long, pale hand had once again plunged deep into his chest.

The stoic Reaper pulled out a long, curved hunting knife from inside his cloak, testing its sharpness with a tiny prick against his finger.

Yugi started forward, but something pulled him back by the scruff of his neck and rooted him to the spot, forcing to watch helplessly the scene that followed.

"_It's not your time,_" breathed a firm, but gentle, voice from behind him. _His_ voice.

"You must hold tightly just above the cut," he heard Odion explain to Kaiba. "Once you feel the tension go slack, tell me to stop immediately; we don't want to sever any more of him than is necessary in case it is decided that he must come back."

The blue-eyed man nodded grimly and wordlessly. Beads of sweat were beginning to form on his brow from sheer concentration; before he had needed only a few seconds, but it had been nearly half a minute now, and Joey's natural spiritual defense system had been given time to retaliate. All the pain that Joey was feeling was being forced onto him. His hand felt as if it were being punctured by a hundred thousand scorching hot pins. But if he pulled away, the element of surprise would no longer be on his side, and Joey, as unlikely as it sounded, might actually be able to seal his defenses against him.

Odion's powerful bronze hands slid into the blonde's chest, and with surgical precision, he began to cut the fibers that connected the boy's essence to his body.

Joey wanted to scream, but his throat was dry and choked. The pain was slow and agonizing. Kaiba's muscles began to shake involuntarily; he could feel Joey's hurting becoming unbearable. Still, Odion deftly and steadily snapped heartstring after heartstring.

Suddenly, Kaiba felt the taut strings relax, and he emitted a sharp warning sound from the back of his throat, quickly jerking back his fire-consumed hand.

Joey's body fell backwards to the ground like a lifeless shell, leaving his spiritual form exposed.

Yugi looked back and forth between the two Joeys in confusion and horror. They looked exactly alike; the only difference was that one was lying unconscious on the floor while the other was standing erect and furious.

"WHAT. DA. _HELL_, KAIBA!" he shouted, evidently laying all the blame squarely on the taller man's shoulders. "What da _fuck_ didja do dat for?!"

"It's the only way to get you to the Board," he replied coolly. "Believe me, I didn't enjoy it," he added, nursing his reddened hand. "But you would have never agreed otherwise."

"OF COURSE I WOULDN'T'VE FUCKING AGREED, YA LUNATIC! AN' I STILL WON'T!"

"As I said before," murmured Odion, "you don't have much choice in the matter. Mr. Motou, I suggest that you call an ambulance to take care of Mr. Wheeler's body while he's away."

"I'm not goin' anywhere!" announced Joey, marching over to where his body lay on the ground. He jumped up and down on it several times before looking up, puzzled. "How come I ain't goin' back?" he demanded.

"An excellent question," replied the tan Reaper softly. "Master Malik has access to a great many powers…perhaps…"

"You've gotta be kiddin' me!" Joey groaned, sinking to the floor. "I'm _not_ goin' back dere!"

"Should I…ambulance…now?" Yugi croaked abruptly, feeling a sudden release that allowed him to move once again.

Kaiba nodded. "Unless the mutt doesn't want his earthly vessel."

Joey curled up in the fetal position, gently rocking back and forth as he watched the slow, unsteady heaving of the chest of the boy on the floor.

"I don't want to go," he whispered, staring down into his own vacant brown eyes.

Using his good hand Kaiba picked Joey up by his collar. "Oh, come on, mutt," he said in a tone that was almost comforting. "The sooner we get this over with, the sooner you can go back to living your worthless life."

"_I _don't think it's worthless," said Yugi quietly as he put the phone to his ear.

* * *

"I-I don't know. I just found him here…like…like…you know..." 

The officer eyed him critically.

Yugi craned his neck to watch Joey's body being hastily loaded on to a long stretcher by two men in pristine white uniforms, trying to ignore the morbid fascination with which Joey's soul was watching the proceeding.

"Hey, be careful wit me, ya dumb bastard! I wanna go back to dat, ya know?" he protested as one of his legs hit the floor. Walking backwards, the accused paramedic unknowingly stepped right through him, followed by the body-laden stretcher and his partner holding up the other end.

"Shit!" exclaimed Joey. "Dat's just creepy!"

"You'll learn to avoid it," said Kaiba, carefully sidestepping as another police officer entered the game shop, narrowly missing him. The tall man turned his attention to Yugi. "Tell them you think you left the door unlocked."

"How did he get in?" his questioning officer asked, as if on cue.

"I...let him in," muttered Yugi. Kaiba scowled at him. "I didn't want to leave him out there alone."

His grandfather put a hand on his shoulder comfortingly. "Of course not, Yugi," he said, his glare daring the officers to challenge this statement.

"And then what?"

"Well, then he asked for a drink and I went to go get it and I came back and…" he trailed off, watching the man's pen scribble his words down furiously on a pad of paper. He was lying. To the police. But who would believe the truth? It sounded crazy even to him when he went over it in his mind. The doubts were coming back. What if…?

He shook his head. He had chosen his side, and there was no turning back now.

"Can you handle it from here?" He turned his head slightly, noting the tall, dark soul collector out of the corner of his light violet eyes.

"I hope Joey's going to a good place," he murmured. "He said he didn't like it there."

Both Joey and Kaiba perked up. That statement was obviously directed at them. It was time.

"The hospital _is_ a good place," reassured his grandpa, who had caught his low words. "I've been there plenty of times, and I haven't come out for the worse. He'll be fine."

Yugi watched two shadowy forms slip out the door. A third, shorter than the other two, hesitated at the threshold and gave him a jaunty wave. "I'll be back soon. Promise, Yug'."

"I sure hope so."

* * *

The trio stepped outside into the crisp early morning air. Joey stopped in confusion as Odion and Kaiba headed in two separate directions, the former towards a pale motorcycle parked across the street and the latter to a gleaming black car facing the wrong direction in front of the game shop. Who was he supposed to go with? 

Across the street the motorcycle revved, and he could see Kaiba glaring at him impatiently through the car window as he brought to life his own engine. He flicked his hand towards him in a gesture that Joey took to mean "Are you coming or not?"

He darted around the car and opened the door to the passenger side before plopping down into the cushy black leather seat.

"Nice ride," he observed.

"It's not mine. Company car," Kaiba replied flatly as he turned the car around so that Odion was in view as he drove. He frowned. "What the hell is digging into me?"

He leaned back in his seat with one guiding hand on the steering wheel and pulled out a pink journal that had been tucked into his belt.

Joey snorted. Who knew that Kaiba was the kind of sensitive guy who kept a diary? A _pink_ diary.

Wait a second…

"Hey, dat's _mine_!" he shouted, quickly snatching it out of Kaiba's hand. "What da hell were ya doin' in my room?" he demanded, knowing that his room was the only place that he could have possibly obtained it.

"Trying to find _you_, obviously," said the other man, his cerulean blue eyes focused directly out the windshield and on the motorcycle in front of them. "Not that what you call your "room" is much of one anyway."

Joey bristled. "Not all of us are dead billionaires, Moneybags."

Kaiba cast him an odd glance out of the corner of his eye. "Moneybags," he repeated incredulously.

"As long as you get ta call me "mutt," I get ta call ya whatever I want," reasoned the blonde.

"Still, I fail to see how it's an insult."

"Yeah, ya wouldn't see it, would ya, rich boy?" pronounced Joey, crossing his arms over his chest with an air of superiority.

Feeling that the conversation had ended, he turned his gaze out the window. They were on the highway now with the rest of the world rushing by. Or rather, _they_ were rushing by the rest of the world. Kaiba was a surprisingly reckless driver, as was Odion, who always managed to keep several car-lengths ahead of them as they wove in and out of the early morning traffic.

"Why don't we just go through everyone?" he wondered aloud.

Kaiba looked sour and took a long time to reply, feeling that Joey hardly deserved to have all his questions answered. "I told you that we have to avoid going through people. All we need is for some extra-sensitive person to see us."

"Extra-sensitive. You mean like a psychic?"

Kaiba scoffed. "People who can catch glimpses of the workings of the world beyond don't go around flaunting it; if they did they'd probably end up in an asylum. Also, they're fairly rare. Your friend Yugi…did you notice how he could distinguish between your body and your soul immediately after they separated?"

Joey blinked. "So? Botha us could see _you. _Does dat make me…?"

"Don't flatter yourself. You two could see me because I _let_ you. To do that takes skill and concentration that you don't have yet; hence, why it was odd that he could see you in your spiritual form. Also, that…thing…"

"Thing?" Joey was puzzled. "Oh, ya mean his guardian man thing. I guess Yug' really is sometin' special, cuz dat's what he said too."

"Who is he?"

The teenager shrugged. "Says he doesn't gotta name. He looks a lot like Yug', though. Sorta."

"Hmm…"

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Oh. Hey, ya do know where yer goin', doncha? Cuz it seems to me like--"

"We're going to The Gates."

"Where are—shit! Is da accelerator jammed er sometin'? I thought we were tryin' ta be inconspicuous here!" he exclaimed.

"Like people don't speed down the highway all the time," muttered the older man.

Joey felt himself being pushed back into his seat as the red needle crept through the upper eighties and into the nineties as they swerved and darted between the other cars. Ninety-five…ninety-seven…one hundred…

"Kaiba…"

…One-o-one…

"Scared, Wheeler?" he half shouted over the feral roar of the engine as he caught Joey's terrified gaze. He leaned a little harder on the accelerator.

…One-o-four…one-o-five…

Joey jutted out his jaw determinedly. "You kiddin' me?" he shouted back, trying to ignore the twisting in his stomach. "I _live_ fer dis!"

…one-o-seven…

A hint of a smirk played around the corner of Kaiba's lips. "Then you're going to _love_ this next part."

…One-o-eight.

Kaiba slammed on the brakes.


	12. Chapter 12

Author's Notes: School. Ugh. That's all I have to say about that. Thank you to all of my dear readers for putting up with me. I swear, one day I will learn the concept of this "regular update" thing.

Have I mentioned yet how dearly I love Pegasus? Not quite as much as I love Kaiba, but he's much more fun to write!

* * *

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter XII

"What the _fuuuuuuuccccckkkk_!" Joey screamed. He hadn't intended for the last word to be dragged out for so long, but it seemed as if someone was pulling it out from the back of his throat like a magician pulls a seemingly endless scarf from out of his sleeve. He couldn't hear very well over the sound of his own voice, but he thought he perceive the sound of Kaiba shouting distantly, "Would you shut the hell up?!"

Kaiba. This was _his_ fault. _He_ was the one who had been driving recklessly. _He_ was the one who had hit the brakes and sent them plunging downwards into the darkness. His nails dug a little more deeply into the other man's shoulder, and if the brunette hadn't been protected by the thick fabric of his white trench coat, they might have broken through his flesh. If he was going down, Kaiba was going with him. The idea gave him a morbid sort of comfort, the only shadow of consolation he had as the car continued to hurtle towards oblivion, and he continued to scream.

* * *

Kaiba grit his teeth in irritation, only just remembering that he would want to have his jaw slack when they landed. True, his teeth were only spiritual, and therefore incapable of shattering, but it would still feel as if they _had_ shattered, and _that_, he knew from experience, was not a pleasant occurrence. 

But then again, neither was this. He wondered vaguely if the momentary satisfaction he had obtained by frightening Joey out of his mind was worth the grating his nerves were going through now. He thought not. The boy had the lungs of a prima donna and apparently the nails of one too. He jerked his shoulder, hoping the blonde would "take a hint" and let go, but instead he only clung tighter.

He decided to ignore it and began to ready himself for impact. They were close now. He closed his eyes. One nice deep breath in…

"—_uuuuuucccccckkkk_! Oof!"

…and out. Joey's screaming had ceased the moment they had hit the ground, and he was now in a state of shock, a mercifully silent state of shock as he had just had all the air knocked out of him. Kaiba smiled to himself and nonchalantly maneuvered the car into an open parking space on the side of the garage labeled 'Purgatory.'

* * *

No sooner had the excitement of Death's visit faded among the demons lurking about the Gates than a new distraction came to light. From the garage Ryou could hear the distant shouts of familiar demon greetings. 

"Where outta Hell ya been?"

"Well, Satan bless! If it ein't the good man hisself!"

"Where did you run off to? You missed Death!"

"No kidding?" replied a deep gravelly voice that sent shivers up Ryou's spine.

"Aw, we wouldn't joke wiv _you_, guv! Not fer summat like this! Saw 'im wiv my own two peepers, I did."

"Is that right?" the voice was closer now, and Ryou was certain he recognized it.

'Not _him_,' he pleaded inwardly. 'Not now. Anyone but _him_.'

As per usual, whichever deity he presumed to be looking over him decided that his prayer was not worth a follow-up.

"Well, well, well. Looking a little under the weather, aren't we, old chap?" said the voice in cold mockery.

"Good morning…Bakura," replied the clerk glumly as he looked up at the man who, he had been told by many, looked distinctly like him. Both of them knew that that was either a calculated lie or a lack of careful observation; they couldn't be more opposite in either manner or appearance. It was the name and white hair that made people jump to hasty conclusions and insist that they could see the non-existent family resemblance.

"I heard Death passed through. Not still afraid of him, are you?" Bakura asked tauntingly as he lazily slid his license across the desk and signed his name in the entry book.

The secretary didn't answer. He entered Bakura's number into the computer from memory, only glancing at the license to make sure it was authentic.

"Well?"

"Your records, sir," said Ryou solemnly.

The other man frowned as he fished the documents from the long inside pocket of his black coat and handed them over. He wasn't used to his questions being ignored, especially not by _him_. Traditional Victorian etiquette usually forced Ryou to partake in polite conversation with the people he was serving. The best part about coming back was watching him squirm as he fought off the ungentlemanly urge to snap at him. If Bakura was deprived of this game, he probably wouldn't bother coming back so often; after five millennia there wasn't much left to do in Hell that he hadn't already done before. He had grown used to the accelerated change of the outside world, so the only way to stave off the ennui while he was here was by making up things for himself to do. Like this.

What would be on today's menu? Profanity with a side of slurs. And it never hurt to remind him just how incredibly effeminate he was.

"Fuck," he announced, seemingly to no one in particular.

Ryou didn't even blink.

"Fuck! Damn! Shit!"

Nothing. Of course, he should have known better. He would be desensitized to these by now; people in the modern world dropped these dangerous words carelessly in general conversation. Ryou would be used to demons coming back and tossing them about like confetti. Time for him to dust off his Victoriana.

"Hey, Dollymop!" (**1**)

Ah, was that a twitch he discerned? Ryou seemed to quiver as his hand paused above the page of the form he was filling out. He could see that the other was biting back his tongue even as he resumed his work. Now he knew that Bakura was trying to get a rile out of him, and now came the fun part.

"God's wounds! You have bloody nice legs!" said Bakura explosively, slamming his hands down on the desk. He noted with approval that the other man's cheeks had taken on a faint pink tinge. (**2**)

"I don't think you ought to be saying things like that," said Ryou, trying hard not to sound too exasperated. He didn't want to encourage him. Then again, Bakura probably didn't need any encouragement.

"Oughtn't I? I think you like it," he hissed, though his voice was without malice. "C'mon, you bloody mandrake. How many men have you bedded?"

Ryou jerked his hand suddenly, accidentally drawing a long black streak across the page he was working on. "Don't you have somewhere to be, sir?" he asked stiffly.

Bakura cocked his head slightly. Well, well, well, this had turned out to be more interesting than he had planned. Some people would naturally get a little defensive, but this…He could think of at least a dozen different responses more befitting of Ryou, and he had already come up with several comebacks for each, but he hadn't been expecting _this_. Was it possible…? Or was it just his own twisted mind at work? If his words had just been said in a slightly different tone, wouldn't that have made a difference in the way he interpreted them?

"I can't go until you've finished my papers," he said lightly, leaning forward on his elbows so that his nose was almost level with the peaks of other's snowy white bangs. "You know," he said carefully, as he pretended to examine his nails, "we didn't mind that sort of thing back in ancient Egypt."

"I expect you didn't mind quite a lot of barbaric things back in ancient Egypt, but of which would you happen to be referring?" Though his tone was one of innocent curiosity, it still had a coldness that clearly implied the conversation needed to stop _now_.

But Bakura wasn't about to let it; this was the most fascinating talk he had had in decades.

* * *

Shaky and disoriented as he was, Joey only narrowly missed slamming the car door on his hand. 

'Get a grip, Wheeler!' he chided himself mentally. 'Kaiba's probably having a field day with this.' Oh, sure, the other man didn't laugh or even smile, but Joey could tell that he was having a fit of hysterics on the inside. He glared at the blue-eyed giant. Oh, yes, he could read him like a book. The way he just kept staring at him…

Each step was an effort, and just his normal stride seemed to strain his legs muscles. He staggered in the most dignified way he could over to where the other two men were waiting for him, Odion, whose face was characteristically blank, and Kaiba, whose cobalt eyes seemed to be mesmerized with his erratic path from the car to the foot of the wooden steps.

He reached out and steadied himself against the taller man by gripping the fabric of his sleeve.

"Kaiba, you…bitch," he croaked.

Kaiba jerked back, startled, as if he had just been woken from a daydream. He quirked one eyebrow, and then said smugly, "I wouldn't be talking if I were you. Nice pants, by the way."

Joey felt his body slump. He hardly needed to look down to know what Kaiba was talking about; he had thought that his legs had felt heavy and awkward.

"You've gotta be kiddin' me!" he groaned. He would take the hospital gown over this any day.

"You come back to the afterlife the same way you left it," Kaiba informed him, though rather too late for the knowledge to be of any use to him.

He looked down. His legs glinted gold in the dim light of the garage, and on his bare chest hung a gleaming silver dog tag, a dog tag engraved with Kaiba's name. And he knew it, too. The smirk twitching at the corners of his lips clearly said, "Who's the bitch now?"

Joey jutted out his jaw and glared before marching up the steps stiffly, not bothering to wait for the other two men, though he had no idea where he was going. "Stupid bastard," he muttered darkly.

He stepped over the edge of the circular door, and onto the plush carpet of a room that a small part of his mind seemed to distantly recall. Compared to the garage, it was dazzlingly bright, and for a few seconds, his head whirled, and his eyes refused to see through the light. Only by squinting could he make out the shape of an eerily familiar form with its back turned towards him. A long tangled mane of white hair spilled down its trim, black-suited back.

"What do you think I'm talking about?" it asked the person sitting behind the desk, leaning forward predatorily. The figure had a deep, gravelly voice that was equally unnervingly familiar.

"Bakura?" Joey asked before he could stop himself.

The man turned sharply so that his body was facing sideways, with one elbow still leaning on the desk in front of him. His red-brown eyes squinted at him, and slowly recognition washed over his features.

"You, Jackie."

"Joey," Joey corrected.

The white haired waved this away dismissively. "You ended up in Hell after all," he observed, letting his eyes run over the teenager's apparel. It had a devilish touch to it; certainly no self-respecting male would dress himself like that by choice unless for some outlandish personal gain.

Joey self-consciously crossed his arms over his bare chest and struggled to retain what little dignity he had left. As he carefully avoided Bakura's gaze, his eyes fell on the man on the other side of the desk. He could have been Bakura's twin. The good twin. He was staring right back at him, looking as if he had seen a ghost.

"You—you…"

He looked familiar, too, in a way that didn't remind him of Bakura. He could have sworn…

"You're the one who escaped!"

Bakura jerked his head towards the other white haired man. "He _what_?"

"He escaped from Hell," said Kaiba from the doorway, finally deciding to make his presence known. Odion stepped inside as well, silently presenting his identification to the gaping clerk. His wide chocolaty brown eyes grew wider.

"I-you…Death…the Board Room. I must direct you to the…you need the key..." he finally managed to spit out. He stood up slowly, pulling from inside his starched white shirt a long golden chain from which dangled a small, but complex, key.

The tall bronzed man cupped his hands to receive it.

"I will require it back before you leave," said the clerk, letting the chain slip, creating a shimmering pile of gold in the other's dark hand.

The gray-eyed man nodded and beckoned Joey and Kaiba to follow him out the door that led into the hallway.

"What in Paradise…?" Joey heard Bakura hiss as Kaiba shut the door behind them.

* * *

The tiny key looked ridiculously small in Odion's large hand as he gently slid it into a nearly unnoticeable hole on the button panel inside the elevator. The silver doors shut seamlessly with an automatic click, and the metal box sent the small party shooting upwards. 

"So this…Board place…what happens when we dere?" asked Joey, trying to break the unnerving silence.

The two men stared at him blankly.

"You'll find out soon enough," said Kaiba finally before returning his eyes to the unchanging scenery of the room.

"Da least ya could do after draggin' me all da way out here is tell me what dey're gonna do!" Joey snapped. "Dat an' get me some decent clothes."

Kaiba tilted his head slightly, giving him a thoughtful sideways look out of the corners of his eyes. After a few seconds of deliberation, he slipped off his silver-studded white trench coat emblazoned with the Kaiba Corp. logo and proffered it, his blue eyes averted from Joey's brown ones.

The blonde could only stare. Was he serious?

"Are you going to take it or not?" snapped the older man. "You wanted clothes. Well, this is the best I can do for you."

Joey reached out silently and grasped the thick fabric just below the collar. He was surprised by the weight of it as Kaiba released his hold and crossed his arms over his chest, still not looking at him.

"Don't drag it on the floor," he warned.

Joey draped it over his shoulders and carefully slipped his arms into the sleeves, trying not to think about how outrageous he probably looked. Instead, as the doors of the elevator slid open, he reflected on two things he had just learned from this incident. One, that Kaiba was ridiculously thin, as justified by his coat and Joey's inability to comfortably button it, and two, that he wasn't a complete asshole after all.

* * *

Joey wasn't entirely sure what he had expected to be waiting for them on the other side of the elevator door. His mind had briefly conjured images of a bunch of suited executives sitting around a mahogany table, or maybe a group of wise old men in white robes. 

He was pretty sure he hadn't been expecting _this_.

"Helllloooo, Kaiba-boy!"

Kaiba's left eye twitched as the red-suited man advanced on him with open arms, and Joey noticed that Odion had mysteriously vanished with the key in hand before his presence could be observed as well.

"Oh, it's been too long, Kaiba, far too long," the man said, his long silver hair shaking sadly with his head though a smirk danced on his lips.

"Not nearly long enough," said Kaiba through his teeth as he stepped out of elevator, quickly followed by Joey.

The man smiled as if he hadn't heard, but amber eyes gleamed intelligently in his alarmingly youthful face.

"You've been busy, though, haven't you?" he inquired, his piercing eyes resting for a moment on Joey's form. Joey pulled the coat a little more snugly around him before remembering who it belonged to; then he wondered if he should just throw it off of him all together. But he didn't think that he wanted this man seeing him so exposed.

The man extended toward him one long, delicate hand framed by the pristine white ruffles of the shirt that lay underneath his flamboyant red suit.

"Maximillion Pegasus, but for you, just Pegasus." he said smoothly, the coy, bemused smile still touching his lips secretively. Joey noticed that Kaiba was giving Pegasus a confused look, but he naturally took the other man's hand.

"Joey Wheeler," he said automatically as they shook.

The man's smile broadened. "How nice. It's such a pleasure to meet Kaiba's boyfriend."

Joey jerked his hand away and gaped at the other man in horror. From behind him he could hear Kaiba emit an odd choking sound.

"I'm sorry, do you prefer 'significant other'?" Pegasus asked innocently. "I'm afraid I've never been very politically correct. Either way, I think it's simply wonderful that he's finally found someone. You know," he said significantly, "we were afraid that he was becoming positively anti-social." He laughed airily at Joey's stunned countenance. "Hard to believe, isn't it? Would you like some wine?"

The blonde teenager was absolutely frozen in place. It was Kaiba who was the first to regain his wits.

"He's not my boyfriend," he stated flatly.

"Tch. Now _really_, Kaiba-boy, you don't have to hide these things from me," said Pegasus, picking a long-stemmed wine glass from a rack nearby and filling it expertly with the shimmering garnet liquid. "Who am I going to tell? Your father?"

Kaiba seemed to be at a loss for words, but his burning glare said everything and more that his voice box couldn't manage.

"I suppose you should choose a seat," said the silver-haired man unconcernedly as he sniffed the wine in his glass.

Kaiba brushed past him in silent fury, but he was quickly pulled back by the back of his collar.

"Now, now Kaiba-boy, where are your manners? Guests first." He motioned for Joey to come forward. "Sit anywhere you like."

Kaiba gave the man another of his dark, confused looks, but Joey barely registered it. He had been far too traumatized by the accusations of being Kaiba's boyfriend to really notice the room they were all standing in, but now it commanded his full attention.

It was massive. Maybe not nearly as massive as the Atrium in Hell or the entrance to Purgatory, but still massive. It reminded him of a cathedral or a museum or a government building. Or maybe all three. The room seemed to be made entirely out of white marble and ornamented leaves of gold that crept up to the ceiling. In the center of the room was a large, highly polished black table around which sat four chairs, each of a different color: red, black, white, and pale gold. Directly behind each of these was a throne.

As he drew closer, he could see that each seat had distinguishing features. The one he was nearing now was a highly raised iron throne that could have belonged to an ancient god of the sea. Next to it was a giant hourglass and three other chairs, one on each side and one in the center.

But the next throne as he traveled a quarter of the room, was hardly a throne at all. It was simple, wooden, and low to the ground. On its back was carved a set of wings, but there was no further decoration. On each side of it was a simple cushioned chair; Joey chose the one on the right. He didn't think that whoever occupied this position would mind his sitting next to them. Kaiba, who had been watching him, chose the one on the left, leaving the throne in the center empty.

"Interesting," murmured Pegasus. Though he was on the other side of the room, they could still hear his voice quite clearly. He took up the high, red-cushioned black throne opposite their seats. "Very interesting, don't you think?"

Joey watched him warily, wondering if he had somehow chosen wrong.

A woman entered the room. Her loose white garments flowed out behind her as she regally made her way across the room. She was beautifully tanned with a curtain of long black hair that fell down her back, and, Joey noticed as she passed him, stunning blue-green eyes. She seemed to float past them without sparing them the slightest glance as she walked towards the throne to Joey's right.

The next person to enter was a stout but powerful looking middle-aged man. He had gleaming dark hair and a moustache, both of which were just beginning to silver.

"Where is Malik?" he snapped as he yanked out the red chair at the table, the one in front of Pegasus. "He's the one who dragged us all—"

"I'm _here_," said a voice that sent shivers up Joey's spine. The violet-eyed blonde to whom it belonged glanced at him for a moment with some unreadable expression and then seated himself at the table next to the other man and in front of the dark-haired woman.

The middle-aged man tapped his large, ringed fingers impatiently on the surface of the table. "Then the only one we're waiting for is…"

"Time," finished Pegasus cheerfully as he drained his wine glass.

Kaiba pushed up the sleeve of his black shirt to look at his watch, and Joey craned his neck for a better view, though he wasn't sure what use it would be to know what time it was. Time seemed to be important to these people, though.

It was past noon. Or maybe past midnight. He wasn't sure. He vaguely wondered what Yugi was doing right now. Suddenly, the hands of Kaiba's watch flew backwards of their own accord until it was exactly the hour, and the elevator door slid open once again. He thought he heard Malik snort in disgust.

"Cheater."

This time it was a man with long sea green hair dressed entirely in white. He silently took the iron throne next to the hourglass.

An odd thought occurred to Joey. They had said "Time" like it was someone's name. And the hourglass…and Kaiba's watch…he couldn't really be…

"Well, that's everyone. Everyone who will bother to show up, anyway. We might as well get started," advised Pegasus.

"Indeed," agreed the green-haired man in a raspy voice. "What exactly have you called us here for, Malik?"

* * *

Yugi stared at the luminous red numbers on his alarm clock. It was midnight, and he couldn't sleep. He wondered where Joey was and what he was doing right now. He hoped he was all right. Whatever happened in the afterlife, Yugi wouldn't be able to do anything about it. 

But there was something here in the world of the living that he could take care of right now if he was careful and if he had the courage. He was used to the feelings of fear and powerlessness, but he was not used to taking initiatives.

He chewed his lip nervously, closing his eyes and willing Sleep to come to him one last time. But Sleep was stubborn.

He took a deep breath. It was now or never.

"Voice, are you still there?"

* * *

Footnotes: 

1. An amateur prostitute or part-time street girl (Source: Castle Falkenstein)

2. These may not seem like the worst curses to us, but to the Victorian mind "God's wounds!" definitely would have been shocking, and "bloody" would have been about the equivalent of "fucking." Also, one certainly did not say "legs" in the vicinity of women, children, and clergymen, or generally in polite company. (Seriously. No, I don't know why, but it's true.)


	13. Chapter 13

Author's Notes: This is totally off-topic, but has anyone seen the new show _Reapers_ (don't own)? Mmm-hmm…and if so, were you all like, 'FTW?! Reapers work for Malik, not Hell!' or something to that effect? Because if you were, then I own your soul. XD If you haven't seen the show, it's pretty good. The only problem I have with it is that the Devil isn't Pegasus-y enough for my taste.

Sorry that not much happens in this chapter, but relations had to be established. -shrug- Whatcha gonna do 'bout it?

* * *

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter XIII

Yugi waited breathlessly for an answer that never came.

"Voice?" he called again. His own voice had become strained, almost desperate. "If you're still there, I know you can hear me."

He felt his heart sink as his ears met with only the eerie silence of the night. Maybe it wasn't there. Maybe it had left with Joey and Kaiba and the other man. He curled up a little more tightly under the covers as he rolled onto his side.

He was alone. All alone.

He blinked back the tears that welled up in his eyes. Anything would have been better than this terrible emptiness; one other person with whom to share his sadness and frustration, even if it was just a disembodied voice, would have made the pain infinitely more bearable. But who would believe him? Who was he going to tell when the only people who knew the truth had left him?

In a dark corner of the room, a shadow pulled his knees to his chest and silently wondered how much more of the boy's anguish he could take.

* * *

Malik rose from the light gold chair at the large table, holding in front of him a sheet of paper from which he began to read. "Approximately two weeks ago on…" 

"Ahem."

Malik glared over his right shoulder at the man seated on the red and black throne far removed from the table. "What do you want, Pegasus?"

"If you will excuse my rather audacious interruption, shouldn't we, for the sake of formality, be taking roll call?" asked the man silver-haired man, deftly refilling his wine glass.

Malik groaned. "We all know who's here!"

Pegasus shrugged, facing the palm of his free hand upward. "If you want to proceed against the rules, then by all means…"

"_Fine_," the blonde snapped, shuffling through the papers in front of him until he found the one he desired. Pen in hand, he began to drone, "Time. Dartz, king of Atlantis."

"Present," said the man with sea green hair.

"Atlantis!" burst out Joey before he could stop himself. "But dat don't—" He cut himself off; everyone was staring at him curiously.

Shaking his head and muttering darkly, Malik continued, "Fate. Isis, seer and priestess in the court of a nameless pharaoh."

"Here," said the dark-haired woman in the throne to Joey's far right.

"Evil. The Devil, Lucifer, Satan, Shaitan, Beelzebub, Mara …Do I really have to read all this?"

"I'm sorry, are you addressing someone?" Pegasus asked innocently.

Malik huffed. "…Prince of Darkness, the Fallen One, Tempter of Mankind, the Morning Star, His Infernal Majesty, Maximillion Pegasus."

The silver-haired man clasped his hands together joyously. "Oh, you were calling _me_? I'm here! My, how many titles I have! Of course, you only need to call me one to sign your soul away."

Joey suddenly felt very light-headed.

The man leveled his piercing amber gaze at him from across room. "That's right, Joey-boy," he said, his tone growing darker with every word, "I _own _you, and this little adventure you've had is going to cost you dearly."

Suddenly, he laughed; the clear, silvery sound made Joey jump in his seat.

"I'm getting ahead of myself," Pegasus said, regaining his cheerful demeanor with a slight apologetic note. "That won't be for at least another hour. You may as well enjoy the time you have left."

"Are we to take it that _this_ is the boy who escaped?" asked the dark-haired man sitting in front of him scornfully. "Pathetic. I can't imagine how you keep Hell running with that sort of slid-shod work."

"Oh, Gozzy, how it tortures me that I will never be as perfect as _you_!" lamented Pegasus, putting the back of his hand to his head as he turned it away in pain. "Why, just yesterday I found myself standing in front of the mirror and wishing I had your dumpy little body and a giant furry caterpillar nesting under my nose."

"Why, you—"

"Good!" said Malik loudly, over the sound of their voices. He automatically turned to stare towards Joey and Kaiba. Joey gripped the arms of his chair tightly, wondering what he had done.

"Not he-re!" sang Pegasus gleefully.

Malik made a little mark on the paper. "How shocking," he replied flatly.

It wasn't _him_ that they had been staring at, Joey realized; it had been the empty throne that was situated next to him. Time, Fate, Evil…Good was missing. But from the Malik's tone, that sounded normal. Did that mean there was no good here? Or no good in the world?

Crap.

"Onto the Horsemen, then," muttered Malik.

Joey frowned. The 'Horsemen'? That sounded familiar, somehow. Maybe something that he had half-learned, half-forgotten in school. He frowned as he tried to remember. It was like an itch in his mind that he couldn't quite reach, and he wouldn't be able to relax until he had scratched it.

"Conquest," said Malik. He glanced at the white chair to his left at the circular table. "Never here. War. Gozaburo Kaiba, warmonger and former CEO of Kaiba Corporation."

"Here," growled the dark-haired man, whose red-suited expanse covered the chair to his right. By now he had taken out a large cigar and was puffing on it sourly.

Joey gaped at Kaiba, the taller, thinner one, who didn't meet his gaze.

"Are you…?" he trailed off, feeling that the unspoken question would be understood.

Kaiba continued to ignore him.

Joey bristled. "Hey, are ya listenin' ta me?"

"Chaos (1)," spat Malik, glaring at the empty black seat across from his pale gold one. "Not here. Good riddance. And Death. Malik Ishtar, tomb-keeper. Here, obviously. Roll call's done. If there aren't any more _objections_," here he glared rather pointedly at Pegasus, "I would like to move on."

Joey pulled his thoughts from Kaiba for a moment. There were only four of these horsemen guys? And only two had showed up? Shouldn't they be waiting for all these people? Wait a second…four horsemen…Conquest, War, Chaos, and Death…where had he heard that before? It sounded like something out of a movie. The Four Horsemen of…

It came to him in a flash. _The Apocalypse_. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2). Shit! That was like the end of the world! Shit, shit, shit! Not good!

"Hey…hey!" he said lowly, trying desperately to get Kaiba's attention. "These horsemen guys, are dey…hey, pay attention when I'm talkin' ta ya!"

"Would you shut the fuck up?" Kaiba hissed sharply.

On the other side of the room Gozaburo Kaiba sat up sharply, squinting at them. "Seto? Is that you, boy? What are you doing scrounging around back there? Come up here where I can see you."

Kaiba pursed his lips and sent another glare in Joey's direction, as if this was _his_ fault.

"I'm fine where I am, thanks," he replied coldly, crossing one leg over the other.

The other man puffed his cigar lazily. "That wasn't a request, boy. Get over here unless you want me to obliterate a small nation from the face of the earth."

Joey could almost hear the grinding of Kaiba's teeth as he got to his feet and made his way to the table in the center of the room. He could only marvel at how his irises could manage to contain the blue fire that raged within them.

"You." The dark-haired man flicked the ash off the end of his cigar in his direction. The glowing red embers skidded across the smooth surface of the table before waning to dusty gray. "You get up here, too. I want to get a good look at you."

Joey stayed where he was. Just because this guy could order Kaiba around didn't mean that he could order him around, too. He crossed his arms over his chest and flicked his head defiantly. As for that little crack about destroying nations…he couldn't really do that, right? And even if he could, it wouldn't be over something as—

"Joey!" Kaiba hissed through clenched teeth, sternly pointing to an area of empty floor-space next to him.

Joey pushed himself up from his seat grudgingly and skulked towards the table though he hardly seemed to know what he was doing. If he had thought about it a little more, he might have realized how reminiscent he and Kaiba were of a disobedient dog and its owner.

Gozaburo frowned as he drew closer, his dark eyes still squinting slightly. "Your name, boy."

The blonde teenager raised his eyes slightly towards Kaiba, who was staring at him impatiently with his arms crossed over his chest. "Joey."

"Joey _what_?"

He scowled, choosing to stare at the man's black silk tie rather than meet his scrutinizing dark eyes. "Joey Wheeler," he mumbled, jamming his hands into his, or rather Kaiba's, pockets. This man made him feel like a rowdy kid who had been sent to the principal's office; it was elementary school all over again. Malik, seated at Joey's right, flinched at the sound of his name, as if it caused him pain to be reminded of it.

"Speak up when someone's taking to you, boy. You already know me. And I see you have met my son…"

"_Adopted_ son," Kaiba corrected sharply.

Joey blinked slowly. That made a lot of sense, actually. At least now he knew where Kaiba got his snarkiness from. Oddly enough, he sympathized with the blue-eyed man; his father reminded him a lot of his own old man.

Gozaburo grunted and took a long drag of his cigar, at the same time taking in Joey's appearance. "Your jacket, Seto?" he asked, pointing at the blonde's chest.

"Yes," he answered simply.

"I see." Joey felt his suspicious eyes lingering on his gleaming pants, and he began to fidget uncomfortably. "Yes, I see. This is the sort of riff-raff you're associating with these days, is it, son? I had doubted that even you could sink so low, but then again, you just love proving me wrong. I certainly hope that _you_ had nothing to do with his escape, whatever the incent—"

Joey flushed angrily. "He didn't hafta help me! I did it by myself!" he shouted, cutting the other man off.

"That is enough!" Dartz snapped from his iron throne. "You are wasting the precious moments I have given you. I can only freeze time on the mortal plane for so long!"

Joey stared at him. 'Freeze time'?

* * *

Yugi tossed and turned fitfully in his bed, unable to sleep with his newfound knowledge of his isolation from the world. He blearily glanced at his clock once again. Still midnight. It hadn't even been a minute, and it felt like centuries. He splayed himself across the mattress, staring straight up through the skylight. It was cloudy; it looked as if it might storm. In fact, a few droplets had landed on the glass pane, but they had yet to be joined by any others. He closed his eyes and then opened them slowly, letting his head gently loll to one side. He raised his eyes to look at the clock. It was still midnight. 

This was getting ridiculous. He closed his eyes and slowly began to count. One…two…three…four…Time dragged. He longed to count faster, but restrained himself.

...fifty-seven…fifty-eight…fifty-nine…sixty! He opened his eyes. Midnight. He frowned. Maybe he had counted too fast after all? But even if he had…it had been midnight for awhile before he had started counting.

The answer came to him. The power had gone out and then come back on sometime during the night. That wasn't so strange, especially when it was soon to be storming.

But he should probably find out what time it _really_ was. He would still be expected to be on time for school in the morning, and as long as he was up…

His feet curled as the touched the soft, cold carpet, and he hastily pulled on a pair of socks before padding out the door and down the stairs. The clock mounted on the wall of the game shop was battery-powered, the only one in the entire house, so that was the direction he was headed.

He slipped through the door and into the darkened room. He shivered. It was only yesterday that he had been in here with Joey, two dead men, and a malevolent spirit that usually resided in his mind.

On the upper right wall hung the objective of his mission; a red-rimmed clock sat on the plaster, strangely quiet. He stared at it. It said midnight, too.

His stomach churned. Something weird was going on here, and he didn't like it. Of course, it could just be some sort of freak coincidence.

Or not.

Something caught his eye through the very edge of the store-front window, and he walked closer, turning towards it in terrified fascination. Two bright headlights reflected off the slick, dark street. They were attached to a car, a blue sports car that was stalled in the middle of the road. The driver of the car had a cell phone pressed against his ear, his mouth hanging open, frozen in mid-laugh.

It wasn't possible. Any second now, the man would move his lips, and the car would speed past. But it didn't.

Yugi stumbled backwards and then ran up the stairs, darting around the corner to his grandfather's room.

"Gramps? Grandpa?" He shouted, trying to shake the older man awake, but he, too, seemed frozen in place. Leaning over, Yugi put an ear to his chest. The familiar rushing of air and gentle beating of the heart that he had for so long taken for granted were nowhere to be found.

Yugi dashed all the way up to his own room, mad with fear. What was going on? He pulled his soft flannel pajama shirt over his head and flung it across the room, at the same time yanking open the drawer of his dresser to search for a shirt.

He grabbed a black sweater and a sleeveless gray jacket, still surprisingly sensible to the fact that it would be cold outside. He didn't know where exactly, but he wanted to go out.

He grappled with a pair of black pants that tangled around his legs disobediently, and finally shoved his feet into a pair of boots before darting down the stairs once again, this time grabbing the set of keys that dangled on a hook at the bottom of the stairwell.

The chimes crashed against the glass as he forced open the door, and he ran out into the cold night air. He tore his gaze away from the blue car and its owner, swiftly passing it, letting it melt into the blur of colors that now constituted his world. Droplets of freezing water splashed against his face, but it wasn't rain that was falling from the sky; it was rain that had already fallen and was now suspended in midair. He whirled around the corner, his feet skidding on the slippery pavement beneath him. Already his chest was heaving with effort. It only took a few more blocks before he was completely out of breath.

He stopped and leaned forward, panting as he made a mental note to take Tristan up on his offer of early morning jogging the next time he saw him. He had reached a usually busy intersection, and here and there were cars speckled along the road like the one in front of the game shop, halted in motion. It was if he had stepped into one of those familiar diner photographs, 'Midnight in the City.'

His head spun, and he staggered backwards until he felt the grooves of a solid brick wall pressing against his spine. He took a deep breath, tasting the slightly smoky city air as he closed his eyes.

At least…he didn't close them all the way. There was a faint rustling sound, one that he would have never heard had the world not been frozen in resounding silence, and peeking through his eyelashes, he could just barely make out the instantaneous flicker of a shadow in the pool of yellow light from the overhanging streetlamp.

So he wasn't alone after all.

"I know you're there," he called out, his eyelids snapping open. "Tell me what's going on."

* * *

"He's right," said Isis. Her voice was low and soothing. "It is critical that we end this gathering on time." 

Joey opened his mouth to ask why, but he was cut off by a snort from Kaiba's direction.

The dark-haired woman chose to ignore it. "Now," she continued, "we must decide what to do with him. It seems that we are all aware of his escape…"

"But we need to find out why he was put in the Book and why he hasn't stayed dead," Malik cut in.

"Is it really that hard for you to figure out?" scoffed Gozaburo. "Hunt down the soul assigned to reap him and lock him in a room with Pegasus for a few hours. Then you'll have your reason."

"I'll have him singing it, if you like," affirmed Pegasus. "Maybe with a little soft-shoe routine to go along?"

Malik remained silent and sullen.

"Who is it?" demanded Gozaburo, leaning forward. "Odion? Your precious 'brother'?"

"Odion had nothing to do with this," snapped the violet-eyed boy angrily. Then, he added more quietly, "It was me."

There was a long pause.

"_You_? Death himself?" asked Pegasus, leaning forward eagerly. "Oh, preserve us! Perhaps I should change it to a tap dance routine…"

"Oh, shut up," Malik snapped. "I've been dead for decades, and I didn't even live on the same continent as this guy. What would I want with him?"

"So you admit you made a mistake?" asked Dartz from his faraway perch.

"It wasn't a mistake!" the boy Death insisted, his nails digging into the edge of the table. "It's not _my_ fault his soul hadn't left its body!"

Time looked at him critically. "His soul had not been severed but you took it anyway?" he asked disbelievingly.

Malik scowled. "It's unusual, but not unheard of; every few years there's always someone who has trouble leaving their vessel for whatever reason. Then, as Rare Hunters, we just force the soul out ourselves. That was what it was like with _him_," he said, pointing at Joey. "I pushed him through the rift and his body fell off like a shell. It surprised me, but it wasn't like I'd never seen it before."

"But I wasn't—I'm not dead!" shouted Joey explosively.

"Clearly," murmured Isis. "But that fact is irrelevant; you have all been asking the wrong questions and seeking needless answers."

"Then why don't you explain it to us, Miss 'I-See-All,'" sneered Gozaburo.

She inclined her head benevolently and leveled her gaze at the others' awaiting eyes. "He is here…because I have brought him here."

* * *

"You—you…" Joey stared at the unassuming and unperturbed woman who sat quietly with her long, slender hands folded in the lap of her pristine white robes as he tried to force the words to come out of his mouth. "_You _brought me here?" 

"Yes."

"But…how? Why?" he asked in bewilderment.

"How? I simply wrote your name in the Book. As to why…that will be revealed in time."

"But—but…"

"It's no use," muttered Malik, his thin pale hair swaying as he shook his head. "She won't tell you anything more about it; we'll have to figure it out for ourselves."

"But how could she just…kill me?" demanded Joey. "Ya can't just do dat? Can ya?"

"Fate can do a lot of things."

"But wouldn't it be going against, y'know, _fate_, ta change stuff?"

"Not if I foresaw that it was my place to make the change," the dark-haired woman replied solemnly, her blue-green eyes vacantly staring somewhere past him.

"But why wouldja hafta change anything?" asked Joey, his head whirling from confusion. "If dat's da way it was supposed ta be…If I was _supposed_ ta die, wouldn't it be dere already?"

"As I say, I foresaw myself making the change to the Book. The change was necessary."

"But—"

"You are still asking the wrong questions."

"Then_ you're_ the one who has been wreaking havoc with the computer system," interjected Kaiba, slamming his hands on the table. "You entered a name in the Book in a place that didn't match with the mainframe's database and threw off my whole system!"

She nodded slightly. "Yes. That, too, was necessary."

"_Necessary_?!" Kaiba looked about ready to bite her head off. "Do you know how much time and labor I've wasted trying to repair that? All for some shitty fortune that you 'saw'?"

"Kaiba, it's a freakin' computer! You can fix dat! How am I supposed ta fix my life?!" Joey interrupted wildly.

The taller man ignored him. "I don't buy any of your destiny crap," he hissed. "Joey was right when he asked you why you had to get involved. If the world is really run by fate, then you shouldn't have had to interfere. The truth of the matter is that you don't know any more about the future than any of us. You just fit your actions to try and fulfill your own little prophecies. You're trying to set destiny in stone when all you have to write with is a cheap washable marker!"

"Then what would you call your death? A series of unfortunate coincidences?" Isis asked. Her voice was calm, but strained, and when she had finished talking her lips pressed into a grim line.

"A series of stupid mistakes," answered Kaiba coolly, drawing himself up to full height.

From the other side of the room the sound of slow, loud claps echoed off the white marble walls. "Very nice, Kaiba-boy," crooned Pegasus. "My offer still stands; if you ever wish to become the embodiment of Pride, then you only need speak the word."

Kaiba looked disgusted.

Isis seemed to relax slightly. She shook her head sadly and prophetically murmured, "You will learn to trust, but you will never accept that your life is anything but in your hands entirely. Not in this lifetime."

Kaiba looked even more disgusted. He opened his mouth to retort, but Joey beat him to it.

"What do I hafta do ta get outta here?"

A hint of a smile touched the bronzed woman's lips and sparkled in her eyes. "Now _that_," she said, nodding her approval, "is the first good question that has been asked all evening."

* * *

1) I know that traditionally the black horseman is Famine/Plague, but you'll see how this fits later. 

2) Biblical allusion to the Book of Revelations. As the world nears its end, the Four Horsemen are supposed to be summoned forth to ravage what is left of mankind.


	14. Chapter 14

Author's Notes: Well! That certainly took _much_ longer than expected. But, huzzah! An update at long last. Thank goodness for your patience, my dear readers. Now, prepare yourselves for some drama! Hissy fits abound!

* * *

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter XIV

The spirit stared at the boy and sighed. He perched himself on an invisible chair in the air and leaned over, balancing his elbows on his knees as he frowned.

Clearly, Yugi was going insane. But as long as the voices in Yugi's head stayed there, there was nothing he could do about it. He was certain that he hadn't heard or seen anything.

Crazy or not, though, it was still his duty to protect him, not that he would have abandoned him now. Strange things were happening. Something had been done to suppress the passage of time; he recognized that much. Would it be worse to think that someone was quite literally taken Time himself hostage, or that, for some reason, Time had chosen to freeze his domain? In either case, shouldn't Yugi have been affected just the same? He puzzled over this.

"I know you're here!" Yugi shouted. He was leaning forward with his small hands balled into tight fists as he spun around slowly, looking for someone who wasn't there. "Answer me! Tell me why!"

The spirit sighed again, now crossing his legs underneath him. "I wish I knew."

Yugi whipped around in his direction, his violet eyes narrowed as they darted in paranoia. The spirit looked on in sympathy. Perhaps his insanity had progressed to such a point that time no longer meant anything to his being. Was that possible?

"You _have_ to know!" Yugi insisted.

His guardian felt himself become as immobile as the world around them. Was he…talking to him?

He gently let himself fall onto the pavement below. The soft thud made the shorter boy gasp and step back nervously. He silently walked to the other side of his charge. His throat was dry, but he tentatively parted his lips to speak. "I don't know."

Yugi whirled around once again to face him.

"Who are you?"

* * *

"Unfortunately, I am not the one to give you the answer." 

Joey groaned, not bothering to hide his exasperation with the dark-haired woman. "But you said it was a good question," he protested dragging his fingers through his hair as if tempted to pull it out by the roots.

"It is an _excellent_ question," agreed Isis. "However, it is question that must be asked of the Board as a whole; no single person has the right to answer for all of us."

"But yer _Fate_! You've gotta know what I hafta do ta get outta here!"

"That is, once again, irrelevant. _I_ am not the governing body. The Board is."

"And I'm not about to proxy my vote to some fortune-telling hussy," established Gozaburo firmly. "My vote is that we send him back. We already have more half-wits in the afterlife than we know what to do with."

"Are you crazy?" snarled Malik. "We can't just 'send him back'! He knows how everything works! Do you want to risk the possibility of humans finding out a way to defy me? Where would the fun be in your little campaigns and crusades if no one died?"

"Oh, I doubt he's _that_ clever," interjected Pegasus before the War Lord had time to reply. "Still, the idea of letting him get away after causing this much trouble is far from pleasing to me. If you want to get rid of him, I am always willing to take advance payments of my due souls."

"It's not _my_ fault I'm here," protested Joey wildly. "_She_ brought me here, remember?" he demanded, pointing at Isis.

"And she must have done it for a reason. We're obviously not supposed to just take him back to the mortal plane or bank him in Hell," agreed Malik.

"I still don't get why she can't just tell ya what she—"

"_If_ I might make a suggestion…"

"By all means, dear Father Time," interjected Pegasus, smiling winningly.

Dartz hesitated for a brief moment before deciding to ignore the remark. "Why not send him after Chaos?"

"Because he'd fail miserably," Gozaburo answered him promptly, jabbing his cigar in the air for emphasis.

"There is always the possibility that he might stumble onto something. And it would resolve the problem of what to do with him."

"No," said Malik cuttingly.

"What?" asked Dartz, taken aback. "But you of all people—"

"_No_," the blonde repeated more sharply than before. "I don't want to find him. Leave him where he is, wherever that is. Let him rot there. I don't care."

"Well, it wouldn't be much of an issue if he had decided to 'rot' there, as you put it, but considering—"

"Considering nothing," Malik snapped. "All he wants is attention, and you're practically lavishing it on him. Ignore him and he'll stop soon enough."

"Oh, yes, that worked out _so_ well the last time you tried it," said Pegasus tauntingly.

"That was different."

"In what sense? Do tell."

Malik shot the older man a look of loathing that would have sent a dozen mere mortals tumbling into the afterlife. "You think I don't know my ow—" he cut himself off, his face flushing an angry red. "Him! You think that I don't know _him_! You wouldn't understand! None of you would!"

"You can't ignore someone like that," said Gozaburo gruffly. "Believe me, it will just make him act out even more."

"Fine! Play his game, if that's what you want, but leave me out of it!" Malik hissed, balling his hands into fists as he got to his feet.

"Malik…" protested Isis softly.

"You know my vote; you've heard my argument, but I don't want to hear any of yours because none of you get it. I'm leaving. I have souls to reap." With that he flipped his dark hood up over his head and stormed out, his cloak flying out behind him like a pair of agitated violet wings.

"Still, something has to be done. He's getting out of hand," insisted Dartz quietly. For a moment Joey wasn't sure if the Atlantean man was talking about Malik or Chaos.

"Agreed," murmured Isis.

"And you think that sending a boy, a _child_, after the lunatic is going to help?"

Joey opened his mouth to protest, but surprisingly Isis beat him to it. "He's hardly a child, Gozaburo."

The red-suited man snorted and then turned his attention towards Joey. "How old are you, boy?"

"Seventeen…and a half," he replied stiffly, unable to curtail the natural instinct to throw out his chest.

Gozaburo snorted again. "Not even a man by legal standards, let alone by _mine_. You expect him to do a job that half the top-ranking demons in Hell couldn't?"

"Let's not be so harsh now, Gozzy," crooned the silver-haired man on the throne behind him. "Your standards are set ever so high. Didn't I tell you that we can't all be as perfect as you? _I_ think that Mr. Wheeler here is a very _fine_ specimen of manhood." His eyes sparkled deviously. "Don't you agree, Kaiba-boy?" he asked, the corner of his lips twitching upward.

Joey jumped. He had almost forgotten that Kaiba was still standing beside him.

Kaiba's thin eyebrows shot up, and he looked distinctly unamused. "I wouldn't know," he replied flatly.

Pegasus smiled indulgently. "Of course not. If Adonis threw himself at your feet, you would just send for security." He sighed. "Such is the cold, cruel world of business."

"What do you want, Pegasus?"

The Devil opened his brown eyes very wide. "What _ever_ do you mean, Kaiba-boy?"

"You know."

"I'm sure I don't. Enlighten me, won't you?"

"As much as you like to hear yourself talk, you won't do it unless you get something out of it. Your little detours always end somewhere, and it's never a place that I like. What are you after?"

"You don't do me justice. I'm not 'after' anything, my dear boy. I was just going to suggest that perhaps, for your own benefit, you ought to get away from business for once and take a vacation."

"I'm not buying it."

"Of course, it would have to be a _paid_ vacation, wouldn't it? In the sense that your service term in Purgatory wouldn't be extended. In fact, it might even be reduced."

"I know what you're thinking, Pegasus, but watch what you're offering," growled Gozaburo warningly.

"It doesn't matter," said Kaiba, tossing his head. "I'm not biting. What do you take me for, old man?"

"I take you for an idiot who doesn't know a good deal when he sees one. It's insufferable, and I won't be blamed for it. If anyone asks who arranged for your education, you can tell them it was Von Schroeder."

"Disowning me, pops?" Kaiba sneered. "I didn't see you pulling that one when—"

"As delightful as this little heart to heart is," interrupted Pegasus, "you are ignoring my point. I'm sure Mr. Wheeler would be most appreciative if you would expedite the process by listening to me."

Kaiba glowered at a bewildered Joey, who had no idea how he was involved with this part of the conversation at all.

"While we _could_ send little Joseph all on his own through the abyss of insanity, that would be _inefficient_. And we all know how much you abhor inefficiency, Kaiba-boy."

"So…?" Kaiba's eyes had narrowed to suspicious blue slits.

"So…why not send him with someone who knows the terrain?"

"Like you?"

"Oh, no, no, no, Kaiba-boy! As a member of the Board, I cannot possibly neglect my duties. I was thinking someone more along the lines of…you."

Kaiba's lips tightened. "And what makes you think I can neglect _my_ duties?"

Pegasus offered him a Cheshire grin. "Everyone is dispensable, dear Kaiba. Believe it or not, the afterlife _can_ function without you. The mortal world managed it quite spectacularly, and so will we."

Joey could almost feel the rage swelling up inside the other man, but the only place that it was discernible was in his darkened eyes.

"Then what makes you think that I would be familiar enough with the terrain of the 'abyss of insanity' to play tour guide?"

Pegasus waved his hand. "It's a figure of speech for the realm of Chaos. It's all around you, wherever you are, but mostly it's in your head. When I say 'you' of course I am being general. I don't mean _you_ specifically, Kaiba-boy, though the abyss of insanity could be contained wholly in your mind, making all of us figments of your deluded imagination. But that would be a different conversation entirely. Either way, I suspect that you have dangled on the edge far more often than the average person."

Joey shook his head as if to clear it. "Does dat mean Kaiba's crazy?"

"I'm not crazy," asserted the tall man coolly. "He is. Apparently he wants me to lead you to a place that doesn't exist."

"But I told you," chided Pegasus popping out the cork of yet another bottle of wine. "It exists all around you. Everywhere."

"Wait…" said Joey slowly. "Ya want us ta find Chaos…"

"Yes."

"And it's everywhere…in dat case, it's here. Found it! Can I go back ta my body now?"

"No," said Pegasus.

"ARGH!" said Joey. "But ya just—"

"I said that the _realm_ of Chaos exists all around you. Not Chaos himself. Cleary, Chaos is not here because his seat is vacant." Pegasus used the bottle of wine he had just finished pouring out to point to the empty black chair next to Gozaburo. "Of course," he said thoughtfully as he touched the rim of the wineglass to his lips, "he might be hiding under the table. Ooh, I hadn't thought of that one!"

For a moment everyone stared in anticipation as if expecting a stripper to leap out of an oversized birthday cake instead of waiting for the bane of humanity to crawl out from under a table. No such luck.

"Den where are we supposed ta find him?" the blonde asked finally, breaking the silence.

"If we knew that, then it wouldn't be an issue," said Dartz dryly.

"Hell is always nice this time of year," suggested Pegasus.

"He's in Hell?" Joey balked.

"Could be. In Hell, out of Hell, beyond Hell. Any way you look at it, Hell is a good place to start," the silver-haired man replied sensibly. "And there are free drinks…if you can find my office."

"I'm not goin' back ta Hell! No way!"

"Oh, but you _must_," insisted Pegasus emphatically. "It's not often we have guests. And once you're in there for your sentence, you won't have time to admire the geography."

"Nope. Not happenin'! Find someone else ta do yer dirty work. All I wanna do is get back ta livin'."

Dartz drummed his fingers lightly on the armrest of his iron throne. "Then let's make a deal," he said.

"Huh?" ejaculated Joey unceremoniously.

"We certainly won't be ungrateful to you for doing this," continued Dartz smoothly. "Since you are so eager to avoid Hell…shall we say that in return for doing us this favor, we will void your contract with the Devil? I assume this will be suitable."

"Void…? Yer kiddin' me, right?" Joey demanded, his mouth agape.

"He had better be," hissed Pegasus in an uncharacteristic and dangerously low voice. "Though I must say, the joke is in extremely poor taste. I had expected something more of you, Time." His back was arched and his knuckles were white as he gripped the sides of his throne. His long, silvery hair, before dignified, now hung down feral and untamed, veiling his face in ominous shadow.

"One soul can hardly make a difference to you. You have billions."

"Billions! And how do you think it got that way?" his voice had now become an almost womanish shriek. "By letting free every fool who decides 'Oh, wait! I don't want to be in Hell after all!'? If I'm going to let _him_ go, then why not let _everyone_ go? Everyone is just one more soul, aren't they? I started out with only one single, solitary, goddamned soul, and that was my own! Are you telling me that I don't matter?!" The black and red throne he was sitting in suddenly burst into flames.

"Surely," said Dartz gently. "This boy is not comparable to you. I just meant that this one _particular_ soul would probably have no high value to you when compared to discovering the whereabouts of Chaos. We can't afford to have him running amuck."

The fire slowly died down until only a few tiny flames licked the edges of the Devil's gleaming and unscathed shoes. "Yes…" he said thoughtfully as he leaned back. "Yes…I suppose when you put it that way…"

"And you can always make another contract with him."

"Mmm."

Words formed at the back of Joey's throat to explain how that would never happen in a million billion years, but they died there courtesy of a withering look from Kaiba's direction.

"Perhaps…just this once. Don't expect me to do this every time you need something done," Pegasus warned, waggling his finger. "Of course, I have my own condition."

"Yes?" The wariness had crept back into Dartz's voice.

A slow smile broke out across his face. "Kaiba-boy goes with."

* * *

"I don't know," the spirit repeated, spellbound. He was! Yugi was talking to him. To _him_! 

"You don't know who you are?" Yugi asked doubtfully.

"No. My name was lost. I told that to Joey." Something in the back of his mind was screaming at him to stop, but the words seemed to flow out against his will. By now Yugi had pinpointed exactly where the sound of his voice was coming from, and though he couldn't see him to know it, he was looking right at him.

Yugi was surprised. "You talk to Joey?"

"I did once, twice. He could see me. You can't?"

"No," replied Yugi, affirming his suspicions. "Well…maybe…no…kind of…" He squinted and moved his head very slowly. "There's a kind of murky place in the air. Like smog."

There was a long silence. He had broken a vow…somehow. Yugi not only knew about him, he had conversed with him. What would happen now? Would some sort of other worldly police force come and whisk him away? If so, they were certainly taking their time about it.

But it wasn't his fault, really. He hadn't _tried_ to get Yugi to discover his existence. Had he? He had wanted it, a little bit, deep down, but that didn't count, did it? Had he willed Yugi to find him?

"You're not just in my head, are you?" asked Yugi abruptly, interrupting his line of thought.

"No," said the spirit. "I am here." Clearly, Yugi was concerned about his mental health. Understandable, really.

"Can you _see_ in my head?"

"No."

"Are we talking telepathically?"

"No. If anyone were around to hear, they would probably throw you in an asylum," he replied dryly.

"Would they hear you?"

"No. Not unless they were Joey," he added after a moment.

"How come Joey—"

"I don't know," he cut him off with a touch of impatience. He had expected curiosity because he, too, was curious about their situation, but he had not expected an interrogation. Besides, he was still awaiting whatever happened next. Someone would have to be here to get him soon. Unless things were more serious in the afterlife than he had thought. Maybe Time was being held hostage after all.

Yugi halted his bombardment of questions, slightly put off by the interruption. He chose his next question more carefully.

"Why are you here?"

He hesitated. Now _that_ was an off-limits topic. He had once seen a movie, with Yugi of course, where such an idea had been indicated. He tried to remember how it had been communicated.

"That's classified information," he pronounced.

Yugi looked suspicious again. Maybe he had chosen the wrong line.

* * *

"Absolutely not," said Kaiba curtly. "I believe we've had this discussion. I said no. You're a bunch of idiots if you think I'm going to change my mind." 

"Care to run that last part by me one more time, Seto?" Gozaburo's dark eyes glinted dangerously beneath his heavy brow. Long, mesmerizing strands of smoke curled upwards from his lips.

"Why do you need _me_ so badly anyway?" Kaiba continued, ignoring his senior. "If he's going to Hell have a demon tail him. They know Hell better than I do."

Pegasus shrugged and shifted his gaze to Joey. "That is my only term. Take it or leave it, dear Joseph."

Joey turned towards the man beside him. "Kaiba…" he wheedled.

The blue-eyed man gave him an acidic glare, but remained silent.

"Kaiba," repeated Joey more adamantly. "C'mon, I just wanna get back home. I shouldn't be here and you know it! Help me out, all right? Why not? I mean, yer gettin' paid fer it, ain't ya?"

Kaiba's glare had softened ever so slightly, but it still seemed to tell him that he was wasting his time.

"…I'll cop yer trench coat if ya don't."

Kaiba raised an eyebrow. "You wouldn't."

"Try me," Joey taunted, hugging aforesaid trench coat more closely.

Kaiba held out his hand. "Give it back."

"Nope!" said Joey, lightly skipping out of his reach. "Ya don't get it back 'til we're in Hell." Was Kaiba really willing to risk his dignity for a stupid jacket?

"Since you want to go to Hell so much, I will drag you there and throw you in unless you give it back right now."

"Fine by me," pronounced Joey agreeably, darting out of Kaiba's long reach once again. "I'm tired of walking anyhow."

"So it's settled then!" exclaimed Pegasus, clapping his hands together joyously.

"What's settled?" demanded Kaiba, stopping short.

"You said…wait a minute…" Pegasus fumbled with a small black device in his hand. "Now which did Dukey-boy say?" he muttered. "The red button?"

"—_Sympathy! Have some sympathy and some_—"

"Whoops! That's not it…maybe it's the crimson one."

"_Since you want to go to Hell so much, I will drag you there and throw you in unless you give it back right now,_" said Kaiba's voice with a shrill metallic ring.

The blood drained from Kaiba's face. "You know I didn't mean it like—"

"Now, now, Kaiba-boy. We all heard what you said. There's no going back on your words. And since the 'now' you were referring to has passed, and Joey has not given you back your coat, I think we can all deduce what happens from here."

"Fuck you," snarled Kaiba.

"If you'd like, but you'll have to find me in my office. For now you will just have to control your raging hormones. In case you had neglected to notice, we're in a meeting. Fortunately, there is a way for you to save face. I believe you have an appointment to drag Mr. Wheeler off somewhere, don't you?"

Kaiba gave Satan a long, hard glare. Then, he wordlessly gripped Joey by the back of his collar, which was rightfully Kaiba's collar, and jerked him to the marble floor, dragging the stunned boy right across the cold, smooth stone and out the door.


	15. Chapter 15

Author's Notes: This turned out to be a lighter sort of chapter in some respects, so I will apologize up front for any extra out-of-characterness that may have come out of my rather bouncy mood. Other than that...I've got nothing. Just thanks for all of your feedback!

* * *

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter XV

"Ouch! Hey, let up, will ya? I can walk fer myself, all right?" Joey protested as he continued to be dragged in an extremely degrading and slovenly manner across the floor of a narrow hallway. He was prepared to admit that the swinging door might have been an accident, but when he had been slammed into a wall as they rounded the corner...no way. Kaiba had done that on purpose, or his name wasn't Joey Wheeler! He struggled to get to his feet, which wasn't an easy thing to do while moving, but Kaiba noticed and stopped him with a swift kick to the ribs.

"Shit! Whadja do dat for?"

"Listen, Wheeler. The Devil takes his contracts very seriously and very literally. I said that I would drag you to Hell, and now that's what I'm going to have to do if I don't want to end up there permanently. Got it?"

"Fine! I got it! Just quit throwin' me around. Fragile merchandise, here!"

Kaiba grunted but did his dragging a little more carefully.

"Dat's right," approved Joey. "Wouldn't wanna wreck yer trench coat. Why da Hell'd ya do all dis fer a jacket anyway?"

"It wasn't as if I meant to," snapped Kaiba. "And it wasn't _just_ for my trench coat," he added cryptically.

"Den what—? _Yeowch_!"

The tall man who now seemed to tower stories above him glanced back. "Oh. That one wasn't intentional."

Joey gritted his teeth and blinked back tears as he gingerly touched the back of his head where yet another door had come in contact. Hadn't these people ever heard of doorstops?

Kaiba continued more slowly down the hallway and finally came to a halt.

"Tired?" Joey asked peevishly. He was still a little sore about the door thing.

"Waiting for the elevator," Kaiba replied, flexing and stretching his arm as a little 'ping' sounded and the doors swished open.

He pulled Joey inside, and the doors just barely missed catching his feet as they closed. It was a large elevator, and several businessmen and –women were taking up the rest of the space. Most of them were staring at the two of them with either curiosity or suspicion.

"Mr. Kaiba…?" said a female voice from the back, trying to ask the unvoiced question that was on everyone's mind.

"The Devil made me do it," he explained emotionlessly.

People nodded and looked sympathetic.

"Hey, we goin' up?" asked Joey, observing the numbers as they lit up above the door.

"Yes," replied Kaiba curtly. Apparently he couldn't be seen conversing pleasantly with him in front of his subordinates. Though, Joey thought sardonically, their conversations usually weren't very pleasant anyway. At least they were more interesting when other people weren't around.

"I thought Hell was down," he said, after a few moments more of contemplation.

"It is. We are going to my office," Kaiba replied testily, as if that were obvious.

"Oh. Right. Yer office." He paused. "Why are we going—"

He was cut off once again, this time by the elevator as it slid open to release its captives. The people around them swarmed out, but Kaiba, and therefore Joey, remained in place as the doors shut once again.

There was an echoic thump as Kaiba let himself fall against the thin metal plating of the wall behind him.

"Tough keepin' up appearances draggin' a dog like me around, huh?" asked Joey, grinning.

"You can't even imagine it, mutt," agreed Kaiba, his tone now more relaxed, but not by much. "You asked why we're going to my office? I want to make sure everything is in order before I leave it to the jackals. If you have any objections—"

"I do," interjected Joey.

"—then you can go fuck yourself," Kaiba finished.

"Shoulda known," muttered the blonde as Kaiba gripped the back of his collar once again to plow through yet another hallway.

* * *

Bakura pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. "So let me get this straight," he growled. "_Joey Wheeler_, an idiot teenage boy who didn't even have enough sense not to sign his soul away in the first place, escaped from Hell by running _into_ a locked door, an event so improbable that we are now awaiting a warrant for your arrest for conspiracy and aid of a fugitive." 

"That's the general premise," agreed Ryou dismally as he was reminded once again of his looming fate.

Bakura grunted. "I don't know how he did it, but I know that it wasn't you who helped him."

Ryou lifted his head in surprise to look at the other man's face. "Why…thank you, Bakura. That's a very kind—"

"You're too spineless."

"—thing to say," finished Ryou dully. He should have foreseen that the demon's words would only hurt, not comfort. Compassionless fiend.

"One look at you and they'd be fools not to see that you had nothing to do with it," continued Bakura.

"Even so…"

"Look," snapped Bakura. "It's nothing to worry about. I broke out _twice_ while Mahaad guarded the Gates, and he obviously kept his position after both times. The only reason that _you_ run the Gates and not him is because the Board needed him to go baby-sit his king."

Ryou might have felt reassured if his mind hadn't completely latched onto the first part of Bakura's statement.

"You evaded Hell…twice?"

Bakura waved his hand airily. "I guess you could say that. Back then it wasn't called Hell, though. There was no Hell, no Purgatory. Just a giant rocky cavern and a few million people with nothing to do. Nothing to do but dig."

Ryou wrinkled his brow. "But in Ancient Egyptian mythology…"

"And since when are _you_ an expert on Ancient Egyptian mythology," demanded the demon.

"Well, at the university..."

Bakura snorted. "At the university," he mimicked. "Who are you going to believe? A bunch of ass-headed professors, or someone who was actually there?"

"Erm…you, sir?" Ryou replied hesitantly.

"Damn right you are. And I say that we dug. We started building, too, but then more Greeks went and died and insisted that things needed to be _rectangular_."

"But what about Ma'at and the soul-weighing and Ammit, the lion, hippopotamus, crocodile creature who ate the hearts of the wretched?" protested Ryou.

"What about them?" asked Bakura.

"Well…were they there?"

"Of course they were there! They're still here!"

"_What_?" Ryou's Victorian sensibilites were scandalized.

"How did your heart feel when you died? Like it was being eaten by a savage beast?"

"That…that's entirely different," Ryou spluttered.

"Really," said Bakura dryly. "And how does _your_ religion account for it?"

"Fools! Idiots, all of them!" shouted a muffled voice from the other side of the wall, interrupting Ryou's thoughts of retort. Its owner flung open the door and stomped angrily into the room. It was Death.

"Who's an idiot?" asked Bakura mildly as he watched the cloaked man sign the Gates' register once again. Ryou shot him a look of worry and disapproval. Death didn't even look up.

"The rest of the so-called Board!" he snapped. "What kind of morons go to _find_ Chaos in Hell? Who in their right mind would _want_ him found?" The man's rantings faded as he and the giant book clutched tight to his chest disappeared down the stairs and into the garage.

"Find Chaos in Hell," murmured Ryou. "But I thought…" he trailed off.

"You thought what?" asked Bakura suspiciously.

"Nothing…" replied Ryou uncertainly. "No, nothing. They are the Board, after all. Surely they must know more than I—"

"Gates' keeper!" shouted Death's voice from the garage.

"Coming, sir!" the white-haired receptionist yelped, quickly gathering up the keys to the portal and scurrying down the stairs, unaware that Bakura's crimson-brown eyes were on him the whole time.

* * *

Yugi didn't trust it. He couldn't trust it. A voice and a fuzzy place in the air; that was all it was. So why did he _want_ to trust it? Because it had told him that he wasn't insane? Because its concrete existence would offer him countless explanations for all the impossible things that were happening to him? 

Maybe it was the voice that made him doubt. It was the same voice he had heard weeks ago, but now, in the cold night air of a literally frozen world it was the only sound, smooth, deep, and haunting as it resonated off the hollow buildings and coursed through the very veins of the city. Joey had talked about demons. Was this some sort of demonic trickery meant to lure him in? It was mesmerizing. He felt that if the voice told him to do something he might half-obey before coming to his senses. Maybe that was what made it so dangerous. On the other hand, it hadn't told him to do anything at all. It was just answering his questions, seemingly truthfully, for the most part; it was sort of hard to believe that it didn't know its own name or even why it was here, though.

But there was one question that he needed a truthful answer to right now.

"What happened to…everything?" he asked, his voice cracking inexplicably. He fell into a violent fit of coughing, which, for some reason, made him all the more desperate to voice his question. "Why is it froz—uck—hftuk!" Panic set in as he choked on his words. It was as if they had slid up his throat and were now suffocating him. He couldn't breath! He clawed at his neck, trying to free it from the invisible grasp. It _was_ a demon, and he had somehow angered it! The world became a hazy blur of shadows.

"Yugi!"

Someone was calling his name.

"Yugi!"

He…he…couldn't hold on…

He let himself be swallowed by the darkness.

* * *

"Nice place ya got here," commented Joey conversationally. It was a lie, of course. If he had been stuck in a room like this all day, he might have killed himself. Kaiba didn't have that option, but he probably didn't need it, considering that, as the late CEO of Kaiba Corporation, he had undoubtedly been born and raised in an office. 

"It's decent," the other man replied. "Not what I had in life, but workable."

Yup, Kaiba had no problem being contracted to spend half a millennium in a prison so long as he could get his work done.

Freak.

Joey shuddered as he surveyed the room anew. It could have been any office anywhere in the world, with its patchy off-white walls, its simple block furniture, and its incredibly stiff chairs covered in an upholstery the color of dirty water, one of which Joey was currently residing in. Kaiba had mercifully decided that the interior of his office was not necessarily part of the journey to Hell. Furthermore, he had reasoned aloud to his reluctant delivery, the Devil couldn't possibly know exactly went on in his office because he (Kaiba) had personally assured himself that his working environment was secure in every way, so as long as Joey agreed not to be a naïve moron and mention it to anyone, he would be temporarily permitted to move of his own accord. This explained why Joey was in the chair and not on the floor.

"You can put my jacket back in the closet," said Kaiba, not taking his eyes off the glowing monitor that he had seated himself in front of.

"Closet?"

Kaiba pointed to his left towards a door that Joey hadn't noticed before. He got up and walked towards it, though he was guided more by curiosity than blind obedience. He turned the cool silver knob that jiggled in the door.

"Fer a dead guy ya sure gotta lotta clothes," he observed, as he stared at the tiny room's contents. Several suits and ties hung from a crooked metal bar, and on the wire rack above him were a great deal of neatly folded shirts.

"I do things for people. They like to find ways to express their appreciation that don't involve them contracting to take on years of my sentence," Kaiba replied.

"You can _do_ that?" Joey asked, his mouth agape.

"Do what?"

"You can give your years to other people?"

"You _can_," the other man replied, his steady blue eyes never leaving the computer screen,"but the problem is that the only people who really take on years are either incredibly stupid or desperate. That means that most souls work on a barter or favor-based system where the worth of everything is just converted and ranked based on Shades, which are years in Purgatory, or Hellyears. Years of service are the closest thing we have to a common currency. Standard exchange is five years in Purgatory for every one year in Hell. There is no actual contractual agreement, of course; it's more a system of measure than anything. My trench coat, for example, would be valued at about two hundred-fifty Shades or fifty Hellyears."

"Your jacket's worth fifty years in Hell?" Joey balked.

"In theory," Kaiba agreed, nodding vaguely. "Material things are ludicrously expensive because they are in short supply. The best way to get something is to have a demon arrange for a human to die wearing a particular item, which is very hard to do because it can't legally be part of the contract."

Joey grinned lasciviously. "So what kinda 'things' did _you_ hafta do ta get all dis?"

The older man's head shot up from his work. "Get your mind out of the gutter," he said sharply. "I got someone out of trouble that could have cost them well over fifty years in Hell, and that's all you need to know. That trench coat goes on the far left. Dust if off first."

"If I take it off, den what am I supposed ta wear? 'Sides, I said I'd give it back ta ya once we were _in_ Hell."

"Look, Joey, _you_ didn't make a binding agreement with the Devil, and I'm going to Hell with you whether I like it or not, so just put my damn coat back in the closet. No one's going to care what you're wearing. People everywhere die stark naked, for fuck's sake."

"…so yer sayin' you wanna see me go streakin' through Hell?"

Kaiba snorted and turned back to his computer, not even bothering to answer.

Joey reluctantly slid the heavy white coat off of his bare shoulders and onto a hanger before jamming it in backwards somewhere in the middle.

"Whoops," he muttered sarcastically. He turned his head ever so slightly, watching the other man out of the corner of his eye. Kaiba didn't do anything. He wasn't paying attention.

Joey gnawed on his lower lip thoughtfully as he formulated his dastardly plot. He didn't care what Kaiba said; if he had to walk around in those stupid gold pants for one more minute, his thighs were going to explode.

* * *

Yugi tossed and turned fitfully. He couldn't sleep. Something in the back of his mind was worrying him, something sad and familiar that was making his heart ache and his eyes water. 

'Loneliness,' his mind supplied gloomily. 'There's no one. No one who would understand. You're all alone.'

But that wasn't true! He ceased his restless movement and lay perfectly still on his back. No, it _wasn't_ true. He had the voice now…didn't he?

Thunder rumbled somewhere nearby, and his eyelids shot open. Was he still in the street? He had to get inside! He threw off the covers, leapt out of bed, and was halfway out the door before he realized that getting home was no longer necessary. He was already there.

He slowly made his way back to his bed and sat at the edge of it, trying to puzzle out what was going on. The last thing he remembered was passing out on the sidewalk of a petrified city. Now he was sitting on his bed, in his room, and wearing the pajamas that he was sure he had changed out of before he left. Heavy raindrops smacked against the skylight like a barrage of artillery. Before, he recalled clearly, they had hung motionless in the air. He instinctively glanced at his clock. It now read 12:01.

What the _heck_?

Time had unfrozen; he could deal with that. But why was he here and not out in the street? Did the demon take him home? But it didn't even have a body. How and why would it do something like that? Unless it had some sort of ultra-magical—no…no, he got it now. He felt his heart plummet to the depths of his stomach. It had all been a dream.

His mouth went dry, and he felt the grating in his throat as he swallowed hard. He needed some water. He got up and slowly shuffled to the bathroom. He flicked on the light and turned on the faucet, immediately bending over the stream that came rushing out to splash some of the cool, refreshing liquid onto his face. It just had been a stupid dream, and now it was time for him to wake up.

Wiping his face on his sleeve, he reached out for the glass that sat at the edge of the counter. His hand quavered just before his fingers touched its smooth surface and stayed there. Time hadn't stopped in this moment, but for Yugi, it may as well have. He stood rigid and motionless as he stared in horror at the floating man behind him reflected in the mirror. A wild thought gripped his mind, and he seized the urge to act on it.

"Voice?" Yugi whispered.

The man in the reflection parted his lips, but seemed reluctant to speak. The twisted emotions flickered in his strange red-violet eyes.

"Voice," Yugi repeated, this time a little more confidently. He began to turn towards the man. "I think I can—"

His words broke off. There was no one there.

His head whipped back towards the mirror. The man in the reflection was still there. He turned back to the spot where the reflection's solid counterpart should have been. Nothing. It wasn't _in_ the mirror, was it?

"Voice, say something," he pleaded.

"I…"

The one hesitant syllable was all he needed to confirm that the man, though invisible without the aid of the mirror, was right behind him.

"I can see you," Yugi breathed.

"You _what_?" the man spat. He seemed to have been shocked into speech by Yugi's words.

"I can see you!" Yugi reasserted. "At least…your reflection, I think. Your hair…it's like mine."

The man self-consciously raised a hand to touch one of his angular yellow bangs. "Yes," he agreed finally. "Yes, it is."

"Who—?"

The man cut him off. "I still don't know."

"Oh. Sorry," Yugi apologized hastily. "I forgot that I had already—it's different when you're actually talking _to_ someone," he tried to explain. "Before it was just a voice, and now it's…" He trailed off as he thought about it. Now he was talking to a wall. How was that any better?

* * *

Kaiba frowned as he paused in the typing of his department-wide memo. Joey was being quiet. Unnaturally quiet. Though this would usually be a cause for celebration, something in the back of his head told him that any silence of Joey's that was not prompted by several rolls of duct tape was bound to be no good.

The loud clatter that suddenly erupted from his closet only served to confirm his suspicion.

"Joey!" he shouted, standing up and marching to the door. "What in the nine levels of Hell do you think you're—"

"Shit! Don't come in! I gotta find some—fuck!—clothes!" yelped Joey, slamming himself against the other side of the door.

Kaiba clenched his teeth. "You've _got_ to be kidding me."

"Look," said Joey, his voice muffled by the barrier between them, "I don't know how things went down at _yer_ house, but even my old man had enough—oof!—sense ta teach me not ta walk around like dis in—owch!—public. Damn, it's dark in here!"

"Joey, you have three seconds before I open this door."

"Neh?"

"One…"

Sounds of rushed clawing and shuffling came from the other side as well as several loud thunks.

"Fuck it, Kaiba! I can't tell which way dis goes on!"

"Well you had better figure it out. You'll have a lot to answer for if I'm blinded or severely traumatized. Two..."

"Blinded? Hah, you'd be blinded all right; blinded wit jealously fer my hot bod, dat is! Bam!"

Kaiba, not having Joey in front of him, stared at the door in disbelief. Had he seriously just said that?

"Er…Kaiba? You dere?"

"Three."

"Wha--?!" Joey toppled out of the closet and onto the rough beige carpet. "Unghh…" he groaned, sitting up and shaking his head like a wet dog. He slowly got to his feet, giving Kaiba ample time to scrutinize his appearance.

The black pants, only half-zipped, were obviously too long and too narrow for him, though they made a better fit than the ridiculous gold ones that he had been wearing before, and the white dress shirt hung off of him sloppily because he had somehow managed to button it unevenly. Also, he could have sworn that all of his clothes had been crisp and sharply pressed when he had hung them up. Apparently Joey had the magical ability to wrinkle anything within three seconds of putting it on.

"Yer too damn tall and skinny, ya freak," Joey complained. "And yer feet are fucking _huge_." He lifted up one of the pant legs to reveal a black shoe made of gleaming leather. Kaiba winced slightly in recognition. That had been one of his good pairs.

"No one said you had to wear my clothes, mutt," he pointed out. "In fact," he added significantly, "I would prefer it if you didn't."

"Yeah, well it's better den nuthin', right?" replied Joey nonchalantly as he stuffed his hands into the pockets of Kaiba's pants. Was that even worth arguing? Kaiba got the distinct impression he wasn't going to be taking them off any time soon.

Kaiba grit his teeth. "I will _allow_ you to _borrow _my clothes, but you owe me. Fix your shirt and get those stupid pants out of my office, for starts." He could only imagine what it would be like when he got back if those ludicrous gold leggings were found in his closet of all places.

"Right," agreed Joey, quickly jumping to work on the task of rebuttoning the shirt. "Ya wouldn't wanna accidentally put dem on. I think my balls are—"

"I don't _care_ about the condition of your…genitalia," Kaiba interrupted, wondering how he could ever 'accidentally' put on a pair of pants like those. "Just get rid of them."

"All right, jeez. I was just tryin' ta warn ya."

"Whatever, we're leaving now before you decide to _live_ in my office," he said, absentmindedly plucking a new coat from one of the hangers. He draped it over his arm and headed for the door, where Joey was already sitting dejectedly.

"I hate dis part," Joey declared as Kaiba opened the door and tugged at the back of his shirt.

Kaiba grunted as he began to pull. "It's no walk in the park for me either, mutt."

"Hey, enough wit da dog jokes alread—_Owch_!"

Kaiba allowed himself a small smirk. That one had been on purpose.


	16. Chapter 16

Author's Notes: Doubtless everyone and their mother has been updating these past few days, but at the risk of having my story completely smothered by fluffy Christmas one-shots (nothing against them XD), I too shall update.

Yay for over one hundred reviews! –dance- Thanks to all of you I feel like I'm doing _something_ of at least minor value. Huzzah!

On a different note entirely, I need to explain to you how messed up testing is at my school. Right now, I have Winter Break for the next two weeks. BUT, one week after the break we have finals. Thanks to this brilliant planning on the part of the school administration, I don't know if I'll be able to fit in another update for awhile. It depends on how much I decide to blow off studying. We'll see.

That is all.

* * *

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter XVI

"Go to sleep," commanded the spirit.

Yugi turned obediently in the direction of his bedroom before he managed to catch himself.

"Why?" he demanded.

"Because you have…school tomorrow," the man hazarded.

It took Yugi a few seconds to reply. "Tomorrow's Saturday," he said slowly.

Dammit. Keeping track of human time was so bothersome. It went by too fast to make any real sense. What was a day or two when you had millenia of oblivion under your belt? Nothing at all.

Wait a second. Where had Yugi gone?

He looked around at the unexpected change in scenery. He had been following the boy again without noticing. They were downstairs in the game shop. Yugi had stationed himself in front of the computer.

"I'm not a ghost," he informed the boy helpfully as the word was typed into the search engine.

"Then what are you?"

He hesitated and then replied simply, "Not a ghost."

"I'm not a ghost either," said Yugi urgently. "But I'm not like you. Are you a demon?"

"Certainly not," said the man indignantly. "If I were, I probably wouldn't tell you anyway," he added.

"But you're a spirit?"

"Yes."

"Of a dead person?"

"So I am told."

Yugi frowned, his brow wrinkling in confusion. "You mean you don't know? You don't even know if you were alive?"

"No. I am told that I was once an Egyptian prince."

He jumped at Yugi's sharp intake of breath.

"_You_ were pharaoh? When? What Kingdom?" he asked excitedly.

"I don—"

"Wait here. I'll be right back!" he interrupted without waiting for an answer to his question.

"I ca—"

This time he cut his own words off with a rushing sigh. Yugi was already halfway up the stairs, and he dutifully floated through the ceiling to follow his charge.

* * *

"Whoa! Hey, what are ya doin' ta me!" Joey yelped, his voice strained and panicked.

"Don't make a scene," Kaiba hissed in his ear as he pulled him up towards his chest. His hot breath tickled the back of Joey's neck, making its hairs stand on end. His pulse began to pick up speed, and he could see the faint vibration of his shirt with every heavy throb. Almost instinctively, he reached a hand up to Kaiba's chest to steady himself. The other man's heartbeats were elevated but steady, though his breathing was ragged and irregular from exertion.

He looked up into those indomitable sapphire eyes, as hard as the stones whose color they had stolen, and instantly knew that any plea for gentle treatment would fall on deaf ears. But he should at least have been able to say that he tried.

"Kaiba…" he breathed, fidgeting uncomfortably, "put me d—aaarrrggh!"

Joey soared gracelessly through the air, floundering for a few brief seconds before skidding across the harsh rocky floor of the cavern. He rolled over onto his back and moaned loudly. Feeling a shadow linger over his face, and he looked up at the man standing over him.

"What da Hell was dat for?" he demanded.

"As I recall," said Kaiba calmly, "not only did I promise to drag you to Hell, but I also agreed to throw you in. Do you plan on getting up or are you pretending to be a doormat?"

Joey huffed as he scrambled to his feet, steadying himself against the jagged wall. "Ya could've just dropped me over the edge," he grumbled.

"Probably," agreed Kaiba as he began his brisk walk down the tunnel.

"Ya didn't hafta catapult me," Joey insisted, walking faster to keep up with him.

"No. But I wanted to," he justified.

"Yeah. 'Cuz yer a fucking sadist."

"All right," Kaiba consented mildly. He was walking even faster now, and Joey was forced to break into a light jog to keep up with the taller man.

"What da heck is yer prob—"

"Walk faster," Kaiba interrupted.

"What?" Joey was alarmed by the other man's low and urgent tone.

"I said—"

"_You_!" screeched a furious female voice. Joey felt his throat tighten at the sound.

"Crap…" he muttered involuntarily.

"Crap is right," said the owner of the voice, pinching one of his ears and pulling down on it. He was brought level with a pair of very familiar violet eyes that promised no mercy.

"H-hey, Mai," he said, smiling weakly.

"Don't you 'Mai' me, mister! Do you know how much trouble you got me into, Joseph?!"

"Uhh…" Joey stalled for time, struggling desperately to keep his limbs from thrashing of their own accord as he jockeyed for balance. He looked up helplessly at Kaiba.

"I can't go to the mortal world for twenty-five years. _Twenty-five_ years! I'll go insane here!"

"Uh, sorry?"

Mai stomped one stiletto-heeled foot. "You don't sound very sorry! Am I going to have to _make_ you sorry?"

"That's hardly necessary," interjected Kaiba. "Twenty-five years is a slap on the hand."

Mai glared at him, her eyes ablaze with purple fury. "And how would you know what it's like? _You're_ from _Purgatory_."

"Please, I've seen Satan dole out twenty-five year confinements to demons that _sneezed_ in a way that he didn't like. Obviously Joey isn't a priority to him. Why make him an issue?"

Joey opened his brown eyes very wide and tried as hard as possible to look like "not an issue," ignoring the fact that Kaiba had pretty much just called him worthless. He could have it out with Kaiba later, but he was certain that he never wanted to be on the receiving end of the wrath of Mai Valentine.

* * *

Yugi burst into his room and pounced upon one of the hefty tomes that lay on his desk. It was one of the many volumes on Ancient Egyptian history that had been gifted to him by his grandfather. He clutched it tightly to his chest and was just about to charge out of the room again when suddenly he stopped.

"I thought you were going to wait downstairs," he said reproachfully to the man in the mirror.

"I can't leave you alone," he replied.

"Why not?" Yugi asked suspiciously. "What would happen?"

"I don't know," said the man gloomily.

Yugi watched the reflection warily as it sprawled itself out on his bed and stared dejectedly at the ceiling. It wasn't telling him something. Actually, it sounded like it wasn't telling him a lot of somethings.

He quietly sat down at the edge of his bed and began to flip through the musty yellowed pages of the book, keeping the mirror in sight the entire time. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see the man slowly get up and lean over his shoulder to look.

"What Kingdom did you say?" asked Yugi casually.

"I don't know."

"Do you know _anything_?" He was regretful as soon as the words left his mouth, and a violent pink burn seared his ears and cheeks to prove it. His frustration had gotten the better of him.

Yugi continued flipping the pages, though he wasn't sure why. If the man didn't know or even if he just didn't want to tell then this was pointless. But something seemed to guide his hands to turn one page…and another…and another…

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I-I'm sure you know…lots of things. And it's not really my business…"

From the mirror he could see that the spirit's gaze was not meeting his own. Yugi ducked his head in shame. What if he really didn't know anything about himself? Was that really his own fault? The man was studying each page with an intense concentration, as if he was trying to prove Yugi wrong by finding something somewhere in the book that would allow him to say that he did know _something_ about himself.

"No. It _is_ your business," the man said finally. His voice was dark, but not dangerous. "But I should not be the one to explain it to you. Certain things are forbidden to me. My memory beyond a certain point is one of them. Another is my acknowledgement of my presence to you."

"But then how—I know you're here. You're talking to me."

The man nodded, wincing slightly. "I broke that rule. I'm trying to break as few as possible now."

"But why? Why would you break it at all?"

"Because you could hear me," the man explained. "I don't know how. And now you can see me, to an extent, anyway. If I had just ignored you, you might have convinced yourself and others that you were insane. You might have _become_ insane. I was not put here to drag you through that mental torture, and if I had chosen wrongly then someone would have been here to take me away by now."

"But you can't tell me what you _were_ put here for?"

The man shook his head sadly.

Yugi stared down at his bare feet, thinking hard. "It must be terrible not remembering anything about yourself. Not having anyone to talk to," he said abruptly.

The man stared off distantly. "I suppose…you get used to it. It is easier to think that perhaps it is better this way. Maybe I was a truly monstrous king. Maybe I brought destruction and death upon my own people. I wouldn't want to remember myself like that."

"I don't think you could do something like that," said Yugi, surprising himself with the confidence of his words.

The spirit in the reflection smiled faintly.

"Thank you."

He was leaning very close to him now. Yugi was almost certain that he could feel the heat radiating from the other's body, but he wasn't sure that it hadn't been supplied by his own heightened imagination. It made him uncomfortable. Was he always this close to him? Was he really with him _everywhere_? Until now it hadn't struck him how very awkward and even creepy the thought of that was. Strange how he had been blinded by the whole 'dead, amnesiac pharaoh' issue.

He jumped up, quickly slamming the book in his hands.

"I think I…um…I think I should go back to sleep now!" he said much more shrilly than he had meant to.

The man was blinking widely in confusion, and Yugi flushed slightly as he turned to return the book to his desk. That had probably been a little weird, but not nearly as weird as suddenly realizing that a strange man had been watching his every move, 24/7, for who knew how long.

He went back to his bed and slid underneath the sheets, suddenly glad for their coverage.

"Good night, spirit."

"Good night, Yugi."

Yugi tumbled out of his bed and onto the floor. Had it just been his imagination, or…

In the mirror he watched his own head pop up from the other side of the mattress. No, he hadn't been imagining things.

"Do you…always sleep there?" Yugi asked the man stretching out with catlike grace on his bed.

"Yes," replied the man calmly. He propped himself on his elbows as a look of sudden realization came into his wine-colored eyes. "Does this bother you?"

Yugi laughed weakly as he used the mattress to pull himself up. "I was just…wondering," he said faintly.

The spirit looked doubtful. "I don't sleep. I can move."

"It's fine. You just scared me," Yugi insisted, climbing back into bed but unconsciously cocooning himself in the covers.

The spirit warily lowered himself back down. He focused his gaze on the ceiling and folded his hands over his stomach. Yugi nestled a little further into his wrap, wondering how and why he had managed to _invite_ a strange man to sleep in his bed.

* * *

"Hmph," said Mai, releasing her painful grip on Joey's ear. Joey whimpered as he nursed what was sure to be a bruise as well as his masculinity, or what was left of it anyway.

"What in Satan's name are the two of you doing down here anyway?" the she-demon demanded.

"It's none of your business what I care to do in Hell," replied Kaiba.

"I didn't ask you what _you_ were doing here, I asked you what you were doing here with _him_. And it _is_ my business if you're in my territory with someone who escaped from it," retorted Mai hotly.

"It's the same thing. I can go to Hell with whomever I so choose, though I have to say this one wasn't much of a choice."

Joey huffed.

"It's all well and good for you to be haughty and cryptic right now, Mr. Hotshot," Mai taunted, "but what happens when I don't let you through? Unless you've forgotten that this is _my_ realm."

"We are here on orders from the Board," sneered Kaiba. "If you decide not to let us pass, then maybe we'll stick around long enough to watch your boss slap another hundred years onto your sentence."

"Prove it," she spat. "Prove that you're coming from the Board. I'm not going to just let anyone through who comes to me with that story, hun'."

Kaiba faltered. He obviously hadn't been prepared for that.

"Couldn't you just call them?" asked Joey helpfully.

"Idiot, you don't call the Board. The Board calls you. You think they just hand out their numbers to random people?" Kaiba hissed.

"But the British guy at the desk…" Joey began to protest.

"Ryou? Not while Bakura's watching him like a hawk. I don't even want to think about what would happen if Bakura got hold of the Boards' numbers…"

"Mai, dear," said a tinny metallic voice from the wall. All of them turned to look. Pegasus's countenance smiled winningly at them from a small flickering television monitor. "Tsk, tsk," he continued, waggling his finger. "What have I told you about toying with pretty young men? They haven't the brains for this sort of confrontation. No matter. They have come from us, and I shall require your complete compliance. Now be a pet and let the nice gentlemen have their way with you, hmm?"

The flickering glow died out of the screen, fading it back to the same slate gray color of the surrounding walls.

"Ugh. Fine, what do you want?" asked the woman, twirling a strand of her wavy golden hair around one of her fingers in a failed attempt not to look curious.

"Have you noticed anyone or anything out of place in your sector?" asked Kaiba in a crisp, business-like manner.

"No."

"Would you mind if we were to determine that for ourselves?"

"Knock yourself silly, sweetheart."

Kaiba looked thoughtful for a few moments. "How can we get to the next level without having to pass through the pit of grime?"

Mai raised an eyebrow. "I'll assume you mean the dancing pit. Take right from here, go straight for about half a mile, take two lefts and jump straight down. You should be in an orange hallway. You can't miss it. It's absolutely hideous. That will take you to Gluttony," she rattled off like a bored tour guide. "Is that all?"

"That will do."

"Do you want to tell me what this is all about?"

"Not partic—"

"--Joseph?" she added quickly.

Joey jumped. "Well…um…" 

"No he doesn't," snapped Kaiba.

"He can speak for himself. Can't you, Joey?" she asked appealingly.

Joey bristled. "Yeah, I can—"

"Wheeler, get over here."

Joey took a step towards the taller man.

"What are you, his dog now?" Mai goaded.

Joey stepped back again. "No, I'm—"

"Joey, if you don't get over here right now, you're even more of a moron than I thought you were. Let me spell it out for you. You are wasting time with this woman. Your time, my time, everyone's time. Don't you want to get back?"

Joey frowned as the conflicting emotions pulled his inner-workings from side to side. Kaiba did have a point, but why did he have to treat him like dirt to get that point across? He chewed his lower lip.

"All right, moneybags," he said finally. "I comin'. Sorry," he said turning to Mai with an apologetic grin, "but he's da one who knows what we're doin'."

"I see." Mai turned on her heel. "Well then, you boys be careful, now," she said coyly over her shoulder. She laughed as the steady click of her heels faded into the distance.

Kaiba nodded at him. Apparently his choice had been an acceptable one. Together they started down the hall.

* * *

"Dat hallway's orange," announced Joey, halting suddenly and leaning backwards to catch a second glimpse of the corridor they had just passed.

"Did we have to jump into a hole to get to it?" Kaiba asked impatiently. He, too, had stopped, and his arms were crossed over his chest.

"Well, no, but she said it was ora—"

"Then it's not the right one. You need to learn to listen to directions."

Kaiba continued walking, and Joey jogged to catch up.

"What're we even doin' here?" Joey whined. "I thought we were lookin' fer dat 'Chaos' guy."

"We are."

Joey snorted. "Yeah, dat was some search ya did back dere. All we have ta do is ask if anything weird's been happening? Dat's it?"

"No. I wanted to get out of Lust quickly."

"Why?"

"I told you, it would have been a waste of time. What is the likelihood that Chaos would choose to hide in a place as open as the first level of Hell?"

"Maybe dat's exactly what he _wants_ ya ta think," said Joey profoundly. "Maybe we just missed him."

"So you're saying that you want to go back to Lust, is that it?" Kaiba sneered.

"No, I'm just sayin' dat maybe we should actually search a place before we say he's not dere. Just so we know fer sure."

"And I will repeat that that would just be a waste of time," argued Kaiba. "From what I can tell, if he was anywhere around, things would be going seriously wrong. It's going to be obvious once we get there. The only hard part will be getting him back."

"Still…what does he even look like?"

Kaiba shrugged. "He left before my time. I probably wouldn't have seen him anyway. Apparently he was prone to locking himself in closets and hiding under tables."

"Great," groaned Joey. "We're tryin' ta find a nutcase?"

Kaiba raised an eyebrow at him. "What made you think Chaos would be stable?"

"I dunno, maybe cuz he's helpin' ta rule da universe, er whatever!" Joey exclaimed, throwing his arms in the air with exasperation.

"You saw my stepfather."

"Dat's true."

They continued walking in silence. As strange as it seemed, Joey just didn't feel like asking any more questions right then. The weight of the impossibility of their task had just collapsed on his shoulders. It was hopeless. He wasn't ever going to get back! It could be centuries before they finally caught up with this loony! Suddenly, Kaiba spoke.

"Jump."

"Huh?"

Kaiba grabbed Joey squarely by the shoulders, forcing him to face him. "We have traveled the prescribed distance. There is a hole in the ground. It is orange. Jump into it."

Joey flushed with anger. "I'm not—"

"Jump into the goddamned hole, Joey. Don't make me shove you."

Joey's brow creased with lines. There was something weird in the way he was saying this. It wasn't with the usual scorn that accompanied Joey's momentary lapses of thought.

Actually it was kind of….

…like something one of his buddies would do to him. They had always teased him for being a little slow on the uptake…

He stared at Kaiba's face. Something was twitching at the corners of his lips, whether it was a smirk or a smile he couldn't tell; his body couldn't seem to make up its mind.

He pushed the older man backwards.

"Yer messin' with me!" he exclaimed.

"I'm being quite serious. Jump," Kaiba replied.

"No, I know dat, but…nevermind. I can't explain it. Yer a jerk."

Joey hopped nimbly over the edge before Kaiba had time to respond.

* * *

Kaiba landed on the ground with not quite as much grace as he would have liked, but he had fortunately been more elegant than Joey, which was what really mattered. He strode over to the blonde's seemingly lifeless form and gave it a slight nudge with his foot. It groaned and flopped over.

"You spend a lot of time with your face to the ground, don't you?" he observed wryly.

"Shaddup," said Joey, spitting out little bits of gravel. "Dat was a freakin' long jump. Ya coulda warned me. And dis color…ugh. I think it's makin' me dizzy."

On that point Kaiba was forced to agree. Whoever had chosen the paint for this hallway had made it the most bilious shade of orange imaginable. As if people weren't already nauseated enough just from having to go through Hell. He chalked it up to Pegasus's overly developed sense of theatrics.

Joey pulled himself to his feet. "_And_ I'm hungry," he announced, finishing his declaration of grievances.

"You are _not_ hungry," said Kaiba sharply. Perhaps a little more sharply than he had intended to.

"I'm hungry," repeated Joey adamantly.

"No you're not."

"You can't tell me how I feel!"

"Yes I can," retorted Kaiba. "And you're not hungry. You just _think_ you are."

"What's da difference?" Joey demanded, yanking on a large tuft of his golden hair. "'Sides, I _know_ I'm hungry cuz _my_ body's still out dere, and dere're probably still feedin' me through tubes. I haven't eaten in weeks!" he exclaimed as the horrifying truth dawned on him.

"And were you hungry _before_?" Kaiba challenged.

"Well…no," Joey admitted reluctantly. "But I am now, and I smell food!"

He darted forward, but Kaiba jerked him back by the collar. "Look, you're not going to die from starvation because your soul doesn't need to eat. You just think that you're hungry because you're _used_ to being hungry. It's a lingering bodily sensation, and you have to learn to ignore it. Furthermore, need I remind you that this is Hell? The food here isn't normal. Promise me that you won't eat any. No, scratch that. Promise me that you won't even touch it."

"But…"

"Promise me, Joey!" he shouted, shaking the boy.

"Yer sure I won't die?" asked Joey undecidedly.

"Wheeler!"

"Okay, okay, I promise."

"Good," said Kaiba, dropping his hold on him. "Stay close."

"Wha?"

Kaiba moved to the end of the revolting hallway and place a hand on the golden knob of an ornately carved wooden door.

"Where did dat come from?" Joey demanded.

"It's been here the whole time," said Kaiba patiently. "Ready?"

Joey sighed in resignation. "I guess."


	17. Chapter 17

Author's Notes: Exams are this week. -angst-

I would just like to take this time to apologize for this being the slowest romance you have and will ever read in your life. Except that it's not a romance. XD It's a Supernatural/Adventure story that just happens to contain the slowest love story in the history of the universe as a subplot. Because it's been seventeen chapters and our heroes have yet to hold hands, let alone make out. I know. I'm working on it.

I fear the reception of this chapter. It feels like one of those that will make or break people's opinions the story. It's probably not nearly as dramatic of an issue as I'm making it out to be, but for me this was very tricky ground. There is a major flashback (probably the only one), and there is a kind of abruptness about the end that I'm not sure I like. I'm rather fond of the scenes, but I'm not sure about the placement. Some feedback on these points would be incredibly useful.

Enough worrying. All the studying is probably addling my brain.

* * *

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter XII

'I'm not hungry, I'm not hungry, I'm not hu—Ah, fuck it. Who am I kidding?' Joey thought as he viewed the expansive feast hall before him. The rows of empty tables around him were laden with platter upon platter of perfectly prepared food. There were whole browned turkeys, stacks of pizza, bowls full of steaming stir-fried rice, trays of plump fruit, and salvers of cakes and cookies and pies…food to tempt everyone from the most discerning gourmet to the most mindless slob. Paradise on a plate. And according to Kaiba he couldn't touch any of it. His stomach grumbled in objection, and he involuntarily emitted a high-pitched whining sound from the back of his throat.

"Walk, mutt," said Kaiba callously.

Joey halfheartedly shuffled forward, being too preoccupied to challenge Kaiba's orders. He really was hungry. Starving. His innards were being clawed to bits by the icy hand that twisted them mercilessly. He cast a yearning look at one of the long tables, his eyes lingering over a particularly succulent looking pile of doughnuts, but Kaiba grabbed hold of his chin and jerked it forward unsympathetically. The sad whining sound was automatically emitted once again, but to no effect. Kaiba continued to stare dispassionately straight down the path in front of them, his lips tightened into a grim line.

"Kaiii-ba…" Joey whimpered.

"Shut up and walk."

"But we've gotta check, don't we? I mean, fer…dat guy."

"I just did."

"What? No you didn't!"

"Look around. Do you see anything out of place?"

"Yeah, dat hamburger—"

"Listen to yourself talk!"

"Dis is stupid! Why da hell do I need _yer_ permission ta do what I want?" Joey snarled.

There was a long pause, and for a moment Joey wondered if the other man was just going to ignore him completely.

"You _don't_ need my permission, but you'd be it would be incredibly moronic of you not to listen to me. I mean, more so than usual. Do you know what they do to people here?"

"Uhh…feed them?" Joey hazarded. What else would they do with all that food?

"That's right. Overfeed them and then starve them and then overfeed them and then starve them, over and over again!"

"Well, couldn't ya just…stop eatin'?"

Kaiba snorted. "Yeah, just like you could stop shooting heroin. The food in Hell isn't real food. It only gives the _sensation_ of being real food; it's food that you can't stop eating no matter how badly you want to unless someone chains you down, which is what they're doing to people right now because there's no one here."

Joey contemplated this revelation for a few moments. "Damn," he finally proclaimed, heartbroken. "Dat sucks."

* * *

"What are you doing in my desk?!" Ryou yelped. Bakura briefly looked up from rifling through the contents of the secretary's drawers as said secretary leapt forward from the doorway arresting the thief's hand in midair. 

"Looking for something I can use," replied Bakura bluntly.

"Use for what?" demanded Ryou, slamming one of the drawers shut. His eyes blazed with the fury restrained inside of him. Bakura reflected on this. He added to his reflection a reminder of just how seriously Ryou took his job and how desperately he seemed to want to keep it. Conclusion: Ryou had things of importance in his desk. Things that were probably vital to the very functioning of the afterlife itself. Things that could be sold for ludicrously high prices in the underworld black market.

And he would dare keep such things in the unlocked drawers of his desk, knowing that he would be forced to leave demons alone in his office for indefinite periods of time while he went to unlock the portal? Fascinating. He couldn't decide if it was a streak of naïve trust in humanity or sheer brilliance. No one would expect to find anything in an unlocked drawer buried beneath mounds of paperwork. No one but a master.

"Let go of me, you brute! You're hurting me!" Bakura cried shrilly and suddenly.

The other man flushed and immediately dropped his hand, mostly in shock, the demon guessed. Even Ryou would know better than to think that he had enough strength in one bony little hand to cause Bakura any pain. He took advantage of Ryou's stunned state to yank out an unexplored drawer and dump its contents on the soft, creamy yellow carpet.

"Bakuraaa…" Ryou moaned in protest as he began to shovel the papers back in. The sound was cut off sharply as Bakura fastened his hands around the other's throat and forced him to the ground.

"What is it exactly that you don't want me to find?" he demanded.

Ryou, having gotten over his initial shock, stared up at him with an expression of mild annoyance. "Really, I…would have…thought better…of you…Bakura," he said with an air of disappointment through struggled breaths. "It didn't work…in 19...52; ...why…would it work...now?"

Bakura released his hold on the other man's neck.

"1952?" he asked. "Damn. I thought it had been longer. Thought you might have forgotten."

Ryou stared at him in disbelief. "How could I ever forget meeting _you_?"

"I did," Bakura lied.

"Still, you couldn't have possibly thought that would work," insisted Ryou, wincing as he gingerly massaged the side of his neck with his fingertips. "An old trick like that? I'm lucky if it only happens to me once a month. I know you can't kill me. And you know that I can't give anything away."

Bakura grunted as he pulled himself to his feet. "How careless of me not to remember something like that," he muttered, just a touch sardonically. "I have to go check in with Hell."

He knew Ryou's eyes were on him as he crossed the length of the room to the hall door. That was why he waited until he was on the other side of it to reach inside his coat and extract the neat parchment packet that he had discreetly purloined while its owner had been chiding him.

Satan bless, he was good.

* * *

"Maybe," decided Joey aloud, "dere's no one here cuz Chaos made 'em disappear." 

"Why the hell would he do that?" Kaiba asked, willing to humor him as long as he had decided to take his mind off of the food for a few seconds.

"I dunno. Does he need a reason?"

"Possibly not. We're talking hypothetically, of course."

Joey tilted his head upward to look at him. "Sez who?" he demanded.

"Says logic on three counts. One, someone would notice if an entire section of Hell just vanished. The Devil would be down here having a hissy fit. Two, I can hear the screams of agony behind that wall. Three, it is physically and spiritually impossible to _make_ people disappear. They do it on their own," explained Kaiba.

"Whadaya mean dey do it on their own?"

Kaiba shrugged so slightly that it might have been mistaken for a mere twitch. "It's normal. After you've been here for so long, you just disappear."

Joey's eyes widened. "Ya mean, just like dat? Afta how long?"

Kaiba's shoulders twitched again. "It depends on the person. Some people only stay in the afterlife for a few minutes. Others stay for…millennia."

"So you die again? Where do ya go?"

"How would I know?" asked Kaiba sullenly.

"Dat's so weird! Den what's da point of even dyin' in da firs—holy shit! Where da hell are we?"

Joey halted. He felt his mouth drop open, but he couldn't even think about shutting it. They were in a room of gold. Pure gold. Or at least that was what it looked like, anyway. It was like a treasure room out of a fairytale with its careless heaps of coins and goblets and boxes and strings of metal. Along the edge of the wall were trees, trees with thin golden leaves and silver branches heavy with bejeweled fruits.

Joey's teeth clicked sharply as his hanging jaw was gently pushed upwards.

"Where _in_ Hell are we," Kaiba corrected him, removing his hand from Joey's chin. "We've been walking through Greed for at least two minutes now. Observant, aren't you?"

"Well, we didn't go through any halls or doors or jump inta anyting, right?" Joey said defensively.

Kaiba shook his head. "Gluttony and Greed border right on each other. That still doesn't warrant the fact that you missed the change from tables of food to piles of gold, though. You still can't touch anything, by the way."

"But—but—" Joey ran his tongue over his dry lips, his eyes unfocused and dazzled.

"We are _not_ going through this again."

Joey bit his lip. So shiny, so close. How would it hurt just to hold one little piece? He had never been so close to so much wealth in his life. Didn't he deserve, at least, to be able to know how it felt to handle so much money and power. Just for a few seconds. That was all he wanted. Kaiba wouldn't understand. He couldn't. He had been around money his whole life. He had lived and died rich. It wasn't fair. Rich bastard.

"What's da worst dat could happen?" he asked huskily. "Dat I'd hafta hold onta it forever?" He laughed. It was a strange hollow laugh, and he didn't know where it had come from.

"Yes," said Kaiba quietly.

"Huh?"

"Gold and silver are excellent conductors of heat and electricity," he said simply. It was clear that he wasn't going to elaborate. He gently tugged on Joey's sleeve. "It's a long way to Sloth."

Still slightly dazed, Joey let himself be led across the room and out into the hall where screams echoed from another room nearby.

* * *

Ryou Bakura's right leg jittered up and down in excitement beneath the mahogany desk. It was 1952, and he was young, having only forty-six years in Purgatory on top of his twenty-two mortal years. Though he didn't know it, he was what demons liked to refer to as 'fresh meat'; he had never done a job dealing with demons before, and he was too inexperienced to know the limitations of their powers. He probably should have never been thrust into such a position, but Mahaad, the Gates' keeper, had received urgent summons from the Board, and he had been the only one in the vicinity who could be trusted, everyone else being under the employ of the Devil. He sent a thousand mental blessings in the direction of whoever had needed that letter delivered at such a fortunate moment. This could be his chance to prove himself! 

True, it didn't seem like a very difficult job; all he had to do was say that the Gates' keeper wasn't here right now, and could he take down a message? That was it. Still, it was something. Something that didn't involve delivering mail. He even got to sit! Doubtless it was this delightful inaction that was making his foot bounce up and down as if attached to a spring. He tried to restrain it, but found that he had begun tapping his fingers instead.

That was when the door swung open, and Ryou met the first demon ever in his life. Certainly, he had seen them roaming the halls, and he had come to dread the swiftness with which they always managed to trip him, but he had never actually _talked_ to one. And this one looked like Lucifer himself. Not like a little red man with horns and a pitchfork, of course, but more like Lucifer the fallen angel. He was a devilishly handsome rogue, with dangerous eyes the color of dried blood set deep in his sharply chiseled face. His skin was lightly browned, kissed by the desert sun, Ryou's mind thought romantically; but his hair was extraordinarily almost as light as Ryou's own. Perhaps he had been whisked away at birth to a foreign land to live among natives or wolves or some other such feral creatures. It gave him a pleasant thrill, though he reflected guiltily that it was indisputably sinful to converse with demons, and especially to look forward to it.

The demon eyed him suspiciously as he crossed the room.

"Where is Mahaad?" he demanded, spitting his words out ruthlessly. Ryou was overjoyed. He sounded exactly like the Demon King in the pantomimes, just as a demon ought to sound!

"Mr. Mahaad has received summons from the Board. Will you allow me to take a message for you, sir?" he asked, trying to control his own voice.

"Goddamn that son of jackals!" the demon ejaculated.

Ryou gasped at the powerful outburst of profanity.

"What?" the demon growled.

Ryou shook his head meekly. "Nothing, sir."

"Hmph. What's your name?"

"Ryou Bakura, sir," he answered promptly.

"_What_?"

Ryou wondered if he had done something wrong. That didn't seem possible. All he had said was his name.

"I said, Ryou Bakura, sir," he repeated gently.

The demon bared his teeth at him, and he could see that they were much sharper than those of normal people.

"What do you think you're playing at?"

Ryou stared at him openly. "I beg your pard—"

"Who gave you my name?" he hissed, jerking him forward by his tie.

Ryou winced in pain as he tried to pull back, struggling like an animal on a lead. "I don't—"

The man snorted. "Ryou Bakura. Nobody has a name like that. Especially not someone _British_. You're British aren't you?"

"Now see here," said Ryou, becoming red and flustered, "I can't help what my name is, but I'll have you know, my father—"

"You know what, _Ryou_? You can call yourself whatever the fuck you want. Just don't _ever_ use my name again. _Ever_."

Ryou gaped at him in stunned silence. Finally, he gathered his wits about him and asked in awe, "Your name is Ryou, too?"

"That is _it_!" the demon roared. He grabbed Ryou roughly by the front of his shirt and lifted him so that the toes of his brown shoes just barely grazed the ground. Ryou would have made at least some effort to fight back if he hadn't been distracted by something very out of place going on inside the portal room. The door had been left open, and from this angle he could see out it quite clearly. The gleaming, black horseless carriages that lined the room winked in the dim light. But…there! There it was again! He watched in frozen fascination as a shadow darted through the rows back towards the portal.

No one should have been in there. No one had been sent in by him, and he would have heard the clatter if someone had just come back….Maybe he was just seeing things. But no! A large cloaked figure was striding towards the portal now. And then it was gone. The figure had vanished just as if it had never been there at all.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

Ryou's head automatically snapped forward in attention.

"Look nancy-boy, I will let you off _just this once_ if you let me out of here. You're lucky I'm in a hurry. But don't ever let me catch you using my name again!"

"I can't let you out. I don't kn—"

The man slammed him up against the wall. "How much of an idiot are you?" he hissed. "You know what? I'll make it very simple for you. Give. Me. The. KEYS. Is that too hard to understand?"

Ryou remained mute. He did know where the keys were, even if he didn't know how to use them. But Mahaad had told him specifically to do nothing but take messages. And he couldn't just hand over the keys to the mortal world to anyone, especially a _demon_ of all creatures.

"Where are they?"

"I'll never tell you! I-I will fight you!" he announced dramatically, bringing his fists up to his face and wondering exactly how he was supposed to use them.

It didn't have quite the effect he was looking for. True, the demon was taken aback, but once he had gotten over his shock, he merely looked amused. An odd smile pulled on the corners of his lips. Ryou didn't find anything humorous at all in the situation. He set his jaw and gave him what he hoped to be a ferocious scowl.

"Mr. Bakura?"

The two white-haired men looked up simultaneously. A tall dark-haired man with a solemn and unreadable face was staring at them from the doorway. Ryou slowly lowered his fists and straightened up. "Er…good day, Mr. Mahaad."

The man nodded at him and then sank into the chair that had been previously occupied by Ryou.

"What do you want, Bakura?" he said, now more coldly.

Ryou was puzzled by this change of tone. Not to mention the fact that the man had suddenly decided to address him solely by his surname.

"I'm afraid I don't quite understa—" he began, but he was quickly cut off by the demon.

"Oh, you know me. I just dropped in for a chat," he sneered. "What the Hell do you think I'm here for? I want to go out."

"I see," said Mahaad flatly.

By now Ryou had become completely overwhelmed by the situation. He had said 'Bakura,' hadn't he? Surely this demon…'_Just don't_ ever _use my name again._' Ah! Bakura was the name they shared, not Ryou! That was how this whole quarrel had started.

"Mr. Bakura, would you please fetch the red folder in the stack by the cabinet?"

Ryou jerked away from his thoughts to blink dazedly at the placid dark-haired man. "Er…me?" he asked uncertainly.

"Yes, Mr. Bakura."

"He's called Ryou," interjected the demon. "I'm Bakura, you're Ryou," he said, turning to the other white-haired man. "If anyone asks your name, you're Ryou. That's it. Not Ryou Bakura. Ryou. Got it? I don't want people thinking you're related to me."

"Well, I don't think I should like being associated with _you_," Ryou retorted huffily. He pulled the thick folder out of the pile and brought it back to the Gates' keeper's desk.

The man pulled out a few forms and then pushed them in front of him. "Please fill these out…Ryou, while I take care of the thief."

Ryou obediently picked up the "pen," an odd reed thing on a little palette of black ink, and began to form his letters meticulously.

"Er…may I ask what this is for?" he asked.

"Yes. I intend to make you my apprentice."

"Y-you _what_?" He suddenly felt very lightheaded. He couldn't have possibly heard that right.

"Your loyalty to my orders and your handling of Bakura just now struck me most favorably. And it so happens that this is very fortunate timing for both of us. We must begin your training immediately. I will be back shortly. Come, demon," he said, motioning Bakura to the open door.

Bakura cast him a backwards glance as he left the room. It wasn't a glare, but it was unnerving just the same.

"An apprentice. I'll be seeing you, then. For the record, I liked the way you handled me, too," he said and then disappeared down the stairs, leaving Ryou to puzzle over his cryptic words.

It wasn't until two years later that he felt secure enough to mention the cloaked figure he had seen lurking among the carriages. Mahaad didn't seem surprised.

"That was probably Chaos," he said matter-of-factly as he rearranged his desk to make room for this new "computer" machine. "He left the day I took you on."

"Oh."

He cast the tall Egyptian an anxious sideways look, trying to see if he had missed something. Apparently not. The man was slowly mouthing the words from a little white handbook as his deft fingers sorted the tangle of wires in front of him. Mahaad didn't seem concerned, so he never brought it up again.

* * *

Seto Kaiba didn't think he could take much more of this. He hadn't minded much at first, mostly because he had been only vaguely aware that it was going on. Later, he had convinced himself that it must be some sort of primitive form of flattery, because there was clearly nothing wrong with him. But now it was just grating on his nerves. It seemed that every time he looked up… 

"Would you stop that?" snapped Kaiba irritably.

"Stop what?" asked Joey innocently, quickly averting his gaze.

"Stop staring at me when you think I'm not looking."

Joey's innocent expression failed him; he hunched over sulkily and jammed his hands into his pockets as he walked. "Why would I be lookin' at yer ugly mug?" he demanded.

Kaiba instinctively brought a hand to his face, as if expecting to find it suddenly scarred or otherwise mysteriously and hideously disfigured to the touch. He cursed himself mentally. It was vanity and it was a weakness.

"I know you were looking at me because I saw you," he retorted.

"Den _you_ were lookin' at _me_," proclaimed Joey triumphantly.

Kaiba snorted. "Please. It's not my fault if you can't keep your eyes off of me, Wheeler."

He frowned, sensing that that had somehow come out wrong. He was sure those hadn't been the words he had been thinking. Joey was staring at him even more openly now.

They walked.

"Hey...Kaiba?"

The words were halting and hesitant; they didn't seem to come out with Joey's usual prolific fluidity, and it put him on edge.

"Yes?"

"I was wonderin'…"

"You've reached that level of thought? Lucifer, preserve us," he muttered.

"…what?"

Joey had been too caught up in whatever he wanted to ask to fully take in the insult. Kaiba frowned. That wasn't normal, and it made him even more uneasy.

"Nothing. Continue."

"Right…Anyway, I was wonderin' are you…y'know, _gay_?"

Though he did not stop in his tracks, Kaiba's shoulders jerked back slightly as his body stiffened involuntarily. Where the hell had that come from? Of course he wasn't. He didn't look like he was...did he? His reply to the question came quickly.

"That's none of your business," he said characteristically. His answer had been simple, clean, and swift, piercing any suspicion through the heart like an arrow. Or at least that was what it had been intended to do.

"Eh, probably not," agreed Joey. "I just was kind of…" he trailed off, letting his gaze wander distantly.

"Kind of what?"

"Nothin'…" Joey fidgeted uncomfortably. "I just…No, nothin'."

Kaiba glanced down at him curiously out of the corners of his eyes. Joey was frowning broodingly and gnawing on his lip. He refocused his gaze down the hall straight ahead of him. Well? Was it supposed to be his move, or something? At this juncture it was too early to discern Joey's intentions. He could wait. It probably wouldn't take long.

Not long at all, as it turned out.

"Look," Joey burst out suddenly. "It's just been buggin' me ever since Pegasus—"

"The Devil."

Joey gave him a strange look.

"Uh…yeah. I already know dat…" he said slowly.

"No, I mean _call_ him the Devil. Or Satan. Or one of his other titles. Never use his real name unless you're talking to him."

"Why not?" he demanded.

"That's the way it works with all the Board members. People prefer to think of them as entities, not as humans like themselves with lives and names and histories. You'll upset them if you go around using their real names."

For a moment it looked as if Joey might become engrossed with this topic. But only for a moment.

"Yer changin' da subject!" he declared.

"No I'm not," Kaiba replied. "I'm just informing you of the way things work here. I can't have you going around making titanic social blunders. And as long as you insist upon continuing, I must further inform you that anything you say will be automatically discredited by the fact that you are citing the Devil at all."

A whole gamut of emotions crossed over Joey's face. Suddenly, he laughed. "I know, sounds stupid, right? I mean, a rich guy like you…ya must've had girlfriends in every big city in da world," he said grinning.

He should have just left it like that. A strong, masculine grunt would have been perfectly acceptable as a noncommittal response. But for some reason, he couldn't content himself with that.

"No. I didn't have any."

"No?" Joey shrugged. His easy confidence seemed to have faltered slightly. "Just waitin' fer da right one den, huh?" he said with a touch of wariness.

"I don't wait for anyone. And I didn't have any boyfriends either, if that's what you're thinking. I never had time for that sort of thing."

"Oh." It took Joey a few seconds to formulate a more thorough reply. "But ya never answered my question."

So he _had_ noticed. Though it shouldn't have mattered to him…to either of them…

"What difference does it make?" he asked, voicing his uneasy sentiments.

"Well…I dunno, just if we're gonna be, like, campin' out together like dis fer awhile…I'd just wanna know."

"We're not going to be 'camping out' anywhere. More likely than not, we will be walking the entire time."

"Dat's not da point!"

"Then what _is_ the point, Wheeler, because I'm not seeing one!" he snapped.

He bit his tongue. That had been too sharp. This conversation was flustering him much more than it should have been.

Joey struggled with his words. "It—I—It'd just be weird, okay?"

Just agree and drop it. That was all he had to do. But his curiosity was clouding his common sense. Besides, he liked to watch Joey struggle with this. Maybe Wheeler had some issues of his own?

"How?" he asked.

"What?"

Kaiba sighed. He was getting tired of having to repeat all his questions. "How would it be 'weird'?" he said, enunciating slowly. "Are you homophobic?"

"No! I mean, I got no problem wit it but…a guy's gotta know these things, Kaiba!"

"There's no need to be so egotistical, mutt."

"Huh?"

"Let me help you understand, since you don't seem to get it. You seem to be under the impression that _my_ sexuality has anything to do with you at all. Clearly, you think that if I _were_ homosexual, I would be secretly lusting after _you_ because we have been and probably will be in close proximity for an extended period of time."

"Somethin' like dat, I guess…"

"And that," said Kaiba pointedly, "is where you are both mistaken and conceited. Just because a man is gay does not mean that he will automatically fall for any half-wit with a dick who happens to come his way."

'_And how would _you_ know how a gay guy tinks?'_ was the mental retort he supplied for Joey. Fortunately, the real Joey's ego centered on a different part of his statement.

"Hey! Who are you callin' a half-wit? I've gotta right ta be worried fer my ass, okay? I'm blonde, and I'm damn good-looking. If you were gay, you'd be all over me! And, I mean, it's not like I'd blame ya fer wantin' me, but I don't wanna be freakin' molested by a dead guy!"

"Joey, does it look like I'm 'all over you'?" demanded Kaiba exasperatedly. This conversation was getting ridiculous.

"No…So you're not gay, den?"

"According to your logic, that would be impossible," replied Kaiba dryly. "So either you're wrong, or I'm straight."

"Wait, either I'm wrong…" His forehead creased with lines of intense concentration as he mouthed Kaiba's words. "But I'm not wrong. Right?" he asked finally with a strange mix of confidence and uncertainty.

Kaiba shrugged noncommittally. "I always think you're wrong. But that's just me."

He could have slapped himself. Was there a reason why he was provoking Joey's scrutiny? Apparently his brain had decided to take a vacation today…

"So dat would mean—"

"I'm just giving you a hard time, Wheeler," he said hastily.

Fortunately, Joey didn't question it further. "Oh. So I _am_ right!"

"If you say so."

He wondered how long it would take for Joey to notice that he still hadn't answered his original question. Then he wondered what the fuck was so hard about just saying no in the first place.


	18. Chapter 18

Author's Notes: Man, I really cranked this one out! I don't think the quality has suffered, though. The best part about having exams is getting home early to write. I don't even have any homework to angst about! XD

Thank you very much for all your feedback on the last chapter! It made me nervous as a writer to be trying out so many new concepts all at once. This chapter falls right back into my comfort zone, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your point of view. And the plot inches its way along.

* * *

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter XVIII

"Wasn't…dere…an elevator…around here?" Joey gasped, puffing violently as he trudged up the stairs. They had walking up them for what must have been _hours_.

Kaiba shot him a look. "What elevator?" he demanded.

"I dunno. When I came down wit dat lawyer guy, we went ta da center a' Hell in an elevator. He said it could take _months_ otherwise."

"There's an elevator to the Atrium?" Kaiba hissed curses under his breath. "No one ever told me there was a fucking elevator!"

"Are you kiddin' me? We're gonna be walkin' fer _months_?" Joey wailed.

"Not if you don't get distracted," said Kaiba scowling. "But considering how often they drag me down here for meetings, you would _think_ that _someone_ would have mentioned that they have a Satan-screwing elevator!"

"…Satan-screwing…?"

Kaiba ignored him and continued to fume inwardly.

"So how long _is_ dis gonna take, den?" Joey asked. "Seems like we've been goin' pretty fast until now. Is it all like dis?"

"Actually, we're a bit on the slow side," said Kaiba, glancing at his watch. "If I were by myself, I would be half-way through Wrath by now."

"Unggghh…cuz you walk too fast," Joey groaned. "And anotha' thing, aren't we supposed to be going _down_? How da heck can we be going _up_ stairs?"

"Because Hell gets all the best architects," Kaiba muttered. "We're actually walking on what you might normally call the ceiling."

"_What_?"

"Remember when we jumped down that hole to get to Gluttony? When you landed you didn't crash on the floor. You were merely thrown back up against the ceiling. That's why it took you awhile to adjust. Your spirit follows the rules of the universe as you are used to perceiving them. Just like you were _made_ to think that you were hungry by the presence of food, you were _made_ to think that the ceiling was the floor, just by the design of the room. You couldn't fix the room, so you instinctively fixed your perception of it."

"Kaiba, yer hurtin' my head again…"

"Forget it. I don't know why I waste my time with you. You don't understand anything."

"Maybe cuz _yer_ just a bad teacher," retorted Joey defensively.

"Or maybe just because _you're_ just an idiot," snapped Kaiba.

Joey glared at him, trying to think up something to say, but nothing would come. His head felt like it was full of cotton balls. He abandoned his thoughts of retort for a sleepy yawn.

"I'm tired."

Kaiba's hands twitched in a way that suggested that he would have liked very much to fasten them around Joey's throat.

"No you're _not_. How many times do I have to tell you this for you to get it through your thick skull that—"

"I don't see anything _makin'_ me sleepy, Kaiba. Don't tell me Hell's got magical pixie dust er sumtin'!"

Kaiba glared at him. "Just don't go to sleep. And whatever you do, don't lie on the—"

"Whoa—Oof!"

Kaiba didn't turn around.

"You're lying on the ground, aren't you," he said more than asked. His tone was that of long suffering.

"Yeth," assented Joey, his face pressed against the stone floor. Ceiling. Whatever it was. "I tripped."

"Damn it."

* * *

Yugi's eyelids fluttered open. He had to blink several times to adjust his eyes to the deceptively bright winter sunlight before he could squint properly to make sure that he was still in his room. In all honestly, he had been prepared to wake up just about anywhere. It seemed like the sort of thing that might happen to someone who found himself talking to dead pharaohs and wondering if his comatose best friend was having a safe trip.

Half uplifted and half crestfallen, he discovered that he was indeed in his own bedroom.

"Good morning?" he called out experimentally.

"Good morning," replied a deep, chocolaty voice.

Oh, good. The dead pharaoh was still here, too. Next to him. In his bed.

Great. Fantastic.

"I'm going to take a shower. Please don't follow me."

"Uh…"

He didn't have to imagine the embarrassed look on the ex-pharaoh's face. He got a full view of it as he passed in front of the mirror on his way to the bathroom. He closed the door behind him but didn't lock it. There was no point, really. There was no point to anything. He had the vague feeling that he had already showered last night, but that didn't really matter either.

He hummed tunelessly and smiled a vacant smile as he pulled off his pajama top.

And then, suddenly, he just couldn't take it anymore.

Yugi grabbed the sides of the sink and screamed at his reflection.

"AHHHHHHHH!"

The door burst open as the spirit heroically threw himself into the room. His red-violet eyes were ablaze with rage, and strands of electricity seemed to be flickering from his hands.

Yugi's scream crescendo'd. But not so loudly that he couldn't hear the thump of footsteps on the floor below.

And just as suddenly as the scream had come, it cut off in his throat. For a few seconds all he could do was stand there, hunched over the sink, panting, and watching the confused spirit as his eyes searched the room.

Then, he ran to the door of his bedroom and flung it open.

"Sorry, Grandpa!" he called to the elderly man who was halfway up the stairs. "Just venting some frustration. Good morning!"

He gave his baffled grandfather a cheerful wave and then shut the door with a soft 'click.'

He collapsed backwards onto his bed, exhaling deeply and smiling ever so faintly.

Yes, he decided, now he was ready to face the day. Fate could do its worst.

* * *

Bakura sat behind the desk of his office. It was a much nicer office than those that where usually allotted to demons. That was because most of the things in it were his. Personally. Over the years he had amassed quite a collection of objects, most of them gold and a great deal of them forms of weaponry. Though they were virtually useless, he still retained a fondness for them from his mortal days that he never could quite shake.

He was currently fingering the golden snake-head hilt of a meticulously wrought dagger. Its previous owner had had it plunged into his chest and had been only too happy to get rid of it. In front of him was the packet of papers he had appropriated from Ryou's desk. He was trying to decide on the most discreet way of slicing it open.

"Knock, knock!" chirped a cheerful male voice as its owner simultaneously knocked on the door to his office.

There were some things (actually, quite a lot of things) that Bakura just could not stand. That was one of them. And that was how he knew exactly who it was.

"Come in," he called as he hastily replaced the dagger on his desk and stuffed the envelope into the nearest hiding place.

Just in time. The door was flung open grandiosely by a tall, lean figure in a red suit.

"Lucifer," Bakura said gruffly in greeting. "To what do I owe this pleasant surprise?"

The man smiled winningly, tossing his long silver hair over his shoulder. "My dear Ba-kuu-ra," the Devil said, drawing out each syllable of his name in the way that most grated on his nerves. "I hardly need a _reason_ to drop in on _any_ of my loyal subjects. Even the ones who are not so loyal as…desperate."

"Desperate?"

"Indeed. I need to send you out on an errand. I would have had Mai do it, but she's been a very naughty girl lately. And I don't mean in the worst Hell-approved fashion. As it is, you might want to see her on your way out and rub it in."

"Mmm," said Bakura, fidgeting uncomfortably. He wished he had had more time to find a place to hide the envelope. "Well, what is it?"

"I…well, let's be honest for once; the _Board_ needs you do go fetch someone. Naturally I would want to send one of my top-ranking demons. And if you had just stayed with me instead of switching back and forth, you would be _the_ top-ranking demon."

"Yeah? Well, I'm kind of busy—" Bakura cut himself off quickly. He kept forgetting that his soul was _contracted_ to the Devil now. The things he did for… He reworded his response. "I'd have to drop some of the other cases you assigned to me."

"I daresay you wouldn't," said Satan, the charming smile still plastered dangerously on his face.

Bakura stared up at him, trying, and failing, to hide his displeasure. "Did you just say I _wouldn't_?" he growled. Something was up. Needless to say, he didn't like it.

"That's right, Bakura," the man said in a sing-song voice. "It has been brought to my attention that you have a copious amount of free time."

"Who told you that?" the demon snarled.

"All one has to do is check your timecard," the Devil continued, "and one can see that it has taken you…almost three days to get from the Gates to Hell. That's rather more than the time it takes the common garden snail to travel a mile, which, by the way, is the exact distance you have to travel to get from the Gates to the elevator that takes you about a hundred meters from this office. I'm quite keen to learn how, exactly, you managed to accomplish this. **(1)**"

Bakura's jaw tightened. "I don't know," he said through clenched teeth. "Paperwork, maybe. You know what they're like in Purgatory."

"Umm-hmm," the Lord of the Underworld said dubiously. "We'll look into that when you return, shall we?"

"Who do you want me to find?" Bakura asked abruptly.

"Not so fast, my dear boy," the Devil crooned. "You're going to have to hunt down Death first. _Then_, with Death, you will retrieve one Yugi Motou."

"Yugi Motou…" Bakura wrinkled his nose. Something about that name…Where had he heard it before? "Why do I have to waste time getting Death first? Surely you can just call him."

"He's not disposed towards picking up right now," said the silver-haired man dryly. "Besides, you're going to need him. You're a demon, not a Rare Hunter."

What in Paradise did that have to do with anything? Unless…

"You want me to bring a _mortal_? Here?" He almost asked if the other man had gone crazy. That would have been a stupid question.

"Is that a problem?" asked the Devil innocently.

Bakura shrugged. "Whatever."

It was the Board's problem, not his.

"Well then, I must run. I'm playing a game of hide and seek with a couple of lovely young gentlemen upstairs. They must at least be in Sloth by now." He turned to leave, but paused at the door. "And, Bakura?" he said with false lightness. "See to it that the contents of that envelope you've stuffed down your pants find their way onto my desk before you go, won't you? There's a good boy."

He slipped out the door, closing it behind him with a wave of his hand.

Bakura pursed his lips and stared at the golden timepiece on his wrist, watching the little second hand tick round and round. He waited a full five minutes before letting out a string of blessings that would have made the entire Vatican City envious.

* * *

"Joey, get up."

"Mmf. Kent," Joey said, his words muffled by the ground.

"You can't or you don't want to?" Kaiba asked critically, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

"Yeth."

"Get up."

"Kaiba, 'm….fuggin' serith."

"You're what?"

"Fuggin' serith!"

"Look, I can't understand a word you're—"

"Serith! Kent, Fuggin'…" For a moment he managed to lift his just a fraction of a centimeter off the ground. "KAIBA, I'M FUCKING SERIOUS! I CAN'T—Mmfth!"

"Idiot," Kaiba hissed.

"Na mai falk."

"Everything's your fault," said Kaiba with conviction, squatting over the boy as he attempted to pry him off the floor. It was as if he had been plastered to it. "I can't believe I'm saying this, Joey, but keep talking. Don't you dare go to sleep here!"

"Ith thith juth lieg th' foog?"

"Nngh! That's right, Joey, just like the food," he said distractedly. He pushed his sleeves up and pulled again.

"Fug."

Kaiba mentally agreed.

He pulled again, and this time Joey peeled right off the floor. It was so unexpected that Kaiba had to throw his arms around him for the sake of his own balance. That had been too close for comfort. One wrong move…

"Can you walk?" he asked, still slightly shaken, though his voice barely let it on.

Joey keeled forward, and Kaiba grabbed him by the shoulders to stop him from hitting the floor once again.

"I'll take that as a 'No'…"

"Wha…?" asked Joey hazily, at least half a minute too late in response.

Kaiba turned the boy around to face him. His brown eyes were dull and unfocused, almost zombie-like in appearance, and he was alternately squinting and opening them up wide in an attempt to stay awake.

"Don't go to sleep on me now, Joey," said Kaiba dangerously.

"Yergh," said Joey blearily as Kaiba swept him off his feet.

Well, perhaps 'swept' was not the right verb. Kaiba struggled under Joey's weight, which wouldn't have usually been a problem for him, except for the extra gravity provided courtesy of Sloth. As he struggled, he contemplated how he could best spare his masculinity in this situation. The most approved method that he could think of would be slinging Joey over one shoulder like a fireman. But in that case, he wouldn't be able to tell if Joey was nodding off, and he wouldn't have any chance of trying to prevent it. It looked like the best way would be bridal-style, but that was just so…

Oh, who gave a fuck? It wasn't like Joey would be able to tell anyway.

He hefted the boy into his arms and began the long, tedious journey through Sloth.

* * *

The spirit watched Yugi warily. He looked normal enough, sitting there, unperturbedly munching on his cereal as he contemplated the puzzle on the back of the box. One would almost suspect that he _hadn't_ had a violent outburst just half an hour earlier.

But the spirit knew better. And so did the old man. He, too, was watching Yugi with the same uneasiness with which one watches a nuclear missile that is liable to detonate at any second. In the year he had been with Yugi, he had learned to trust Grandpa's instincts. He was a clever old man, even if his choice of reading material was…questionable, to say the least.

"Teenage hormones," the old man muttered, before turning away to continue his sweeping. He kept a watch on Yugi out of the corner of his eye, though.

The spirit made a mental note to ask Yugi about these 'hormones' when he was feeling more stable. He was fairly certain that they had had no such things in Ancient Egypt, though if they had he probably wouldn't remember it anyway. As it was, he had only heard of them in passing, mostly from Grandpa's mutterings.

"Gramps?" said Yugi unexpectedly. He lifted his head to look at his grandfather with a strange intensity. "What's a good name?"

"A good name for what?" he asked in cautiously in return.

"Well…" began Yugi, "What if you found someone who couldn't remember their name. What would you call them?"

The spirit tilted his head at the boy, though he wouldn't be able to see it. Was he…?

"I'd take them to the hospital before giving them a name," Grandpa replied dryly. "You haven't found someone—"

"I mean hypothetically," said Yugi hastily. "So if, um, you _hypothetically_ found this person, and you couldn't take him to the hospital, and you didn't want to have to keep calling him 'you' or 'spir—' umm, I mean, 'person,' what would you call him?"

The spirit felt a warm tingle crawl up his spine. He was touched. Yugi was trying to fit a name to him. No one had ever tried to do that. It meant acknowledging that he was human, that he had dignity.

Solomon Motou gave Yugi a long hard stare, and then finally seemed to decide that there was no telling what his grandson was capable of today.

"Why not let him name himself?" he asked.

This idea didn't seem to have occurred to Yugi.

"I…don't know. Could he name himself?"

"_No_," the spirit said adamantly.

"No," repeated Yugi to his grandfather. "No, let's say he couldn't."

The old man continued to give him a quizzical look. "Well, what kind of 'person' is he?"

"Umm…well, he's…kind of mysterious and…powerful, but he can also be protective and nice. He, uh, _follows_…things, and he's very…reflective. And I think he likes the dark and shadows."

"I see." He let out a long, tired sigh. "Yugi, did you bring home a dog?"

"_What_?" Yugi was alarmed, and so was the spirit. "No, Gramps. Not a dog! I don't want a dog's name at all!"

"Of course not!" the spirit growled indignantly, though Yugi was the only one to hear him.

The old man chuckled. "Oh, well I guess that's all right then. You know how your mother feels about dogs." Grandpa thoughtfully stroked his neatly-trimmed gray beard. "But as long as it's just a human name you want…hmm…darkness…"

Yugi looked at him expectantly.

"Cole, Dwayne?"

Yugi sighed dismally. "No, nothing like that. Something more…ancient…?"

"Erebus?"

Yugi shook his head sadly. "No, that's not right…maybe something more…exotic?"

"Nero?"

"Wasn't he the emperor who played the violin while Rome was burning?"

"Yes."

"Um…I don't think that will work…"

"Yami?"

"W-what?"

The spirit lifted his head.

"It's not really a name, at least not that I've heard of," said Solomon apologetically. "I'm just throwing things out there."

"No, it's good…" said Yugi quietly. "Really good…"

"Yami." The spirit tested the word on his tongue. It wasn't his name. It didn't bring back any memories. He wasn't disappointed, though. He hadn't expected it to. His name was lost to this world forever. But the point was that this was _a_ name. More than that, it was a name that Yugi wanted to call him.

"Yes," the spirit said slowly. "Yami…I think I like that…"

* * *

Once he had traveled what he judged to be a safe distance from Sloth, he promptly deposited the boy in his arms onto the stony ground. Joey groaned, but halfway through, the groan transformed into a gaping yawn.

"C-can I go ta sleep now?" he asked childishly as he stifled another yawn. He was blinking slowly and widely as he attempted to keep himself awake long enough for an answer.

"You don't need to sleep," Kaiba said flatly. It probably wouldn't be dangerous, but it sounded wasteful.

"Try tellin' dat ta my body," Joey moaned. "'Sides, you look like you could do wit some shut-eye yerself."

Kaiba considered. It was true that he overworked himself. He always had in life, and death hadn't seemed like a good enough reason to stop. There was no room for laziness or slipups if you wanted to stay on top; there were literally thousands of people just lying in wait for a chance at your place. And anywhere but the top just wasn't good enough for Seto Kaiba.

But all this work was beginning to take its toll. He was no demon. He wasn't used to all this jumping between worlds and hiding and revealing himself to mortals. All that was spiritually draining, and he had been out of practice for years. Not to mention all the days he had spent sorting through the remnants of his system thanks to the little game Fate had decided to play with it. And being in Hell wasn't exactly spiritual energy boost, especially when the sector of Hell was Sloth.

Souls did need to rest. About once every hundred years usually did the trick for most people in Purgatory, but in Hell sleep came considerably more often; Satan was probably afraid that people would start becoming desensitized to the pain if there was nothing to contrast with it.

And Joey wasn't _completely_ a spirit. His body was still out there, probably eating up some of his spiritual energy just to survive and maintain the feeble connection his soul had to it. He was bound to tire out easily.

As he thought about this he absentmindedly kicked Joey in the ribs. Repeatedly.

"Leave me 'lone," Joey grumbled, rolling onto his side to protect his vulnerable stomach from the wrath Kaiba's unforgiving shoes.

It didn't look like he would be getting up anytime soon. And that suited Kaiba just fine. If business had taught him anything, it was that it was always good to have a scapegoat. He couldn't very well lead Joey on a search for Chaos if the boy had decided to collapse at his feet, now could he?

He sank down against the wall and stretched his feet out in front of him, trying to ignore the wide brown eyes following his every move.

"I could get in serious trouble for this," he informed Joey. "I hope you appreciate the risk that I'm taking for you."

"Aw, ya big softie," said Joey, grinning good-naturedly as dragged himself over to where Kaiba was. He pulled himself into a sitting position right next to the other man. "I knew ya wouldn't leave me hangin'."

"Don't get used to it, mutt," Kaiba warned. He didn't like how close Joey was to him, but _he_ wasn't going to be the one to have to move.

Joey laughed softly and groggily. "Course not. Except you don't even really hafta be here. All ya said was ya'd drag me ta Hell and throw me in. Not that ya'd go with me all the way ta wherever it is we're goin'." He punched Kaiba lightly on the side of his arm. "Bet ya didn't even think I'd thoughta dat."

Joey laughed again at Kaiba's surprised look, this time even more sleepily. "Ya know what, Kaiba? Sometimes I think yer not such a bastard after all. But if ya wanna pretend, den dat's fine by me."

Kaiba was startled by this. So startled, in fact, that he didn't even notice that Joey had fallen asleep on him until it was too late. Not only that, but because of their height differences and the fact that Kaiba sat close to the wall while Joey slumped, the boy was not on his shoulder, but his chest, breathing heavily against his ribcage.

He tried to gently shake the blonde off, but that only made it worse. His head slipped further down his chest in such a way that meant Kaiba had to drape his arm over him if he didn't want it to be engraved permanently with the pattern of the wall. And moving away would mean attempting to pry Joey's death grip off of his shirt without ripping it.

Kaiba sighed resignedly. Not to Fate, of course. He would never resign himself to Fate, no matter how badly life seemed to want to shoot him down. No, he had resigned himself to the fact that Joey's stupidity somehow seeped into the world around him and provided for awkward consequences. None of this was boding well for his 'not gay' argument. He could only hope that Joey's face wouldn't somehow end up in his lap.

* * *

1) All true. When the Devil decides to tell the truth, he really goes all out. 


	19. Chapter 19

Author's Notes: Uhh…oops? Accidental two month hiatus anyone? Sorry about that, guys. It's been a little hectic around here lately. But you see, when I say I'll update soon I clearly mean 'soon' relative to the age of the universe.

The Good News: Spring Break is coming up, meaning I should be able to pull this together for a little while. The Bad News: AP Exams are also coming up along with a whole mess of other stuff. But fear not! We made it through this last year, and so we shall do it again! Yes, that is right, my pretties; this story has officially been up for over a year! I can't believe I'm still writing it! Heck, I can't believe you're still reading it! Provided people _are_ still reading it…oh dear.

More Bad News (for some of you): I couldn't fit Yugi and his newly christened guardian into this chapter. But next chapter. I swear. And that chapter will be up 'soon' relative to the length of Yami's imprisonment in the puzzle. XD

EDIT: For some reason a lot of my words were being slurred together likethis. Hopefully I fixed them all...

* * *

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter XVI

_Holy shit._

Joey squeezed his eyes shut and then little by little allowed himself to peek out of just one.

No good. He was still staring at the buttons of Kaiba's crisp white shirt. At least he hoped it was Kaiba's shirt. No, no, no! That wasn't what he hoped! It wasn't as if he had _wanted_ to wake up sprawled over Kaiba. It was just that…well, it'd just be weird and creepy and disgusting if he woke up on anyone else. Not that this _wasn't_ weird and creepy and disgusting. It was just _less_ weird…and creepy…and…disgusting.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't _disgusting_, but this sure as Hell was the weirdest and creepiest thing that had happened to him since…since…he had to think about that one. He hadn't yet taken the time to organize all of his most terrifying life experiences, but he was pretty sure that the majority of them had occurred within the last few weeks. Oddly enough, most of those experiences seemed to involve Kaiba, too. His gut-level instinct told him that Kaiba was just plain bad luck.

He jolted as he remembered that he wasn't even sure that it _was_ Kaiba who he was laying on right now. He jerked his head up sharply, and his fears (well, some of them, anyway) were alleviated. Kaiba was sitting up just as rigidly as if he had been awake, but his eyes were closed, and his face wore a mask of tranquil, if eerie, blankness. He allowed his muscles to relax as he rested his head against the other man's chest once again, feeling its swell and ebb on the side of his face. As long as Kaiba had decided to sleep in, why shouldn't he? Kaiba would undoubtedly wake him up with a shout and a swift kick when he found that Joey was on top of him. That was what _he_ should have done when he had woken up. But it was warm and comfortable here, his head was feeling foggy, and he didn't feel like exerting the effort required to get up. It wasn't like there was anything to do anyway.

But he couldn't go back to sleep. Sure, he wanted to, but sheer force of will didn't seem to cut it. Something bothered him about the thought of Kaiba flinging him away. It would hurt. Maybe not just physically. He felt a pang of some foreign emotion inside of him, but he didn't have time to try to decipher it. Kaiba's long, deft fingers were sliding through his hair and down to the base of his neck. His skin prickled in the wake of the cool, unexpected touch. He stared up at the other man in stunned panic and then let out a breath that he hadn't known that he had been holding. Kaiba was still asleep. But it was definitely time to move.

He carefully untangled Kaiba's hand from his tousled hair, and gently began to pull away. But without the support of Joey's body, Kaiba suddenly slumped sideways as his own body fell limply to the floor with a thud. For an instant, Joey froze, half squatting, half standing, but Kaiba stayed where he was. He really was out cold.

_Crap. _He couldn't be out _permanently_, could he? Hadn't he said something about people dying again? What if he was dying? Worse yet, what if Hell had claimed him? Maybe they hadn't gotten far enough away from Sloth! Cold blind terror washed over him, chilling his blood and contracting his muscles painfully. He was going to alone. Alone in Hell, with no idea where he was going and only a vague remembrance of the way to get back.

No. _No_!

"Kaiba," he called hoarsely and desperately as he leaned forward on all fours. "Kaiba, get up, ya big dumb bastard!" With stiff, shaking hands, he slowly reached out and jerked the man's shoulder violently. "Kaiba, don't mess wit me! I mean it! Dis ain't funny!"

He didn't move.

"Shitshitshitshit_shit_!" Joey pulled at his hair with such terrified strength that it was a miracle that great blonde tufts didn't come away in his hands. His restless limbs pushed themselves up, bringing him to an unstable standing position. He began to pace the room.

"Don't panic, don't panic. Don't lose yer head over sometin' like dis, Wheeler," he said to himself aloud as he clasped his hands behind his back. "Maybe he'd just a real deep sleeper. _Real_ deep. Oh, sh—no. No, it's all good. He's gonna wake up an'…an' tell me I'm a mutt or a naïve moron or…FUCK IT, KAIBA!" he shouted, whipping around suddenly, "GET UP! Get up! Get…Kaiba…" his voice trailed off in a whimper as he sank forward onto his knees.

He felt hurt. Betrayed. How could he leave him like this? It wasn't fair! He was _Seto Kaiba_. Seto-_fucking_-Kaiba! He couldn't just…just…Was it his fault? Had he done something wrong?

His eyes raised slightly to look at the contorted mass of long, lean muscle, just as motionless as he had left it.

"I hate you," he whispered reproachfully.

* * *

Bakura jerked at the roots of his bangs, his palm pressed firmly against the dome of his forehead. He closed his eyes and then opened them slowly, unconsciously letting them wander towards the unfolded yellow parchment lying on his desk. He wished to the gods that he had never laid eyes on it. This was _not_ the sort of thing he had expected to find when he had decided to root through Ryou's desk. By all rights he should have been amused by it. But he wasn't. At the very least he should have been indifferent to it. But for some reason he was feeling far from apathetic.

"Idiot boy," he hissed at the neat, flowing cursive. The dark red-brown of the signature mocked him. It was the same endorsement that he had seen hastily scrawled on back of his renewed license, though that one had been written by a much steadier hand.

But it was still there, and the story it told was clear. Once upon a time, Ryou Bakura sold his soul to the Devil. The contract was proof enough. It was genuine. He had drafted far too many to even consider that it might be a fake. Besides, a fake would only be useful in the archives of Hell, not buried in the desk drawer of an unassuming secretary in Purgatory. No, it was definitely real. And that was why Ryou was hiding it. Because if memory served, Ryou had only been dead for a little over a hundred years, and clearly he hadn't spent that time in Hell. How he had managed to get it back Bakura couldn't imagine; to do something like that would take more cunning, desperation, and ingenuity than Bakura had ever given the other man credit for. If he was caught with it…well, suffice to say that he would be spending more than a hundred years in Hell. It would be more like a millennium…or two. The Devil didn't appreciate the brand of ingenuity that left him humiliated.

Possibly Ryou would have gotten away with it for a few more years, maybe even another century, but Bakura had just been ordered to deliver the contents of the unlucky envelope straight to the Devil. And he didn't want to. It was against his principles. Heh. A thief and a demon with _principles_. It seemed a paradox, but it really wasn't, not to him anyway. Everyone hated a rat, and thieves and demons were no exception. It was a rule so ancient, so _basic_ among both professions that it didn't even warrant speech to express it; in essence, if you did something and got away with it, it was no one's business to bring it up unless it directly affected them. Ever. Period. Those who attempted to gain the favor of their superiors by tattling were generally spat upon. In Ancient Egypt, that had often been quite literally. In Hell they had more interesting methods.

The point was that Ryou had gotten his contract back, perhaps not fair and square, but since when had that been the way they did things in Hell? The fact that he had gotten it at all…Bakura almost felt a grudging sort of admiration for the other man. It seemed like a waste to hand him over now, just when he was proving to be so interesting.

But he had himself to think about. His amusement was not worth his general well-being. If he could play his cards right, though, there was no reason why he shouldn't have both.

Bakura took the delicate yellowed parchment from the envelope and stuffed it in his inside jacket pocket. Then, he pulled some papers out of a nearby file and put them in their stead. The Devil had said that he wanted the contents of the envelope. Well, he had never said they had to be the same contents that had been there before. Really, including him the envelope itself was nothing less than an additional courtesy; he could have just stuffed something in the envelope, taken it out, and then sent it straight to the Devil. Satan was losing his touch in his old age. Fortunately, Bakura wasn't.

He rose from his seat, tapping the freshly resealed envelope on the surface of his desk and frowning pensively as he tried to remember if he had forgotten any other stipulations. He finally decided that he hadn't. Noiselessly, he slipped out of the door of his office and strode with easy confidence in the direction of the elevator.

* * *

It was a long time before Joey could will himself to move again. He just sat, staring, waiting for something that he knew was hopeless. His muscles ached. He didn't care.

But he couldn't just sit there forever. _Somebody_ had to go find Chaos.

Well, they could just find somebody else.

Except…after what seemed to have been an eternity of immobility, the gears of his mind began to turn. His eyes lit up. What if…what if…? If he did go find Chaos and destroy him he could go back to the Board and they would have to do something for Kaiba, right? After all, he had gotten him this far. And if worst came to worst, maybe he could bargain with them for his soul...again. He shuddered. In Purgatory, that was. Definitely Purgatory. But to do that he'd have to find them, and to find them he would have to find Chaos. He forced himself to his feet purposefully.

Kaiba would have to stay here, though. There was only so far that he would be able to carry him.

"Sorry," he muttered guiltily to the body.

Something blue caught his eye sticking out from underneath Kaiba's arm. It was his trench coat, still neatly folded. He never _had_ gotten around to putting it on. Instead, he had carried it around like a security blanket. With the faintest touch of a smile on his lips, Joey yanked it from under him and held it up, letting gravity unfold it for him. Then he stiffened.

It didn't matter now, considering that Kaiba had been dead for years, but Joey couldn't repress the electric jolt of fear that coursed through his body. There were two small, neat holes below the left shoulder, holes that left an ominous and irregular crimson stripe halfway down the back. Kaiba had never told him about this. In fact, hadn't he said that he had died in a plane crash?

Joey's eyes narrowed. Well, it would be something to ask him when the Board woke him up. He had originally intended to drape it over the other man, but running his fingers over the smooth, worn fabric, he changed his mind. It could be his security blanket now. He needed it more than Kaiba anyway.

He slipped the jacket over his shoulders and was pleased to find that it was looser and more comfortable than the other jacket of Kaiba's he had stolen. He cast one last glance at the fallen man.

"Don't worry. Joey Wheeler's gotcha covered. We'll get outta dis," he said reassuring himself more than the man on the floor. The silence was awkward. He was used to Kaiba having a retort or at least a glare for any word that came out of his mouth. "Well…I…I guess I'll be seein' ya then," he added lamely, and he vaguely wandered into the hall.

* * *

The door of the office burst open with a bang as the handle slammed against the plaster wall, deepening the familiar notch where it had hit many times before and adding to the spider web of cracks in it. Ryou's lower lip pushed upward involuntarily though he was trying his hardest not to frown. Demons in general seemed incapable of entering a room in the normal fashion, and this demon in particular was positively allergic to normalcy.

"I need to find death," the demon proclaimed.

Ryou stared at Bakura blankly for a several seconds. Well, that was an odd way of putting it, but he could certainly understand the sentiment.

"Yes, I suppose we all feel like that sometimes," he said sympathetically. Then, seeing the other man's expression he added hesitantly, "I take it you've, er, been having a bad day?"

Bakura squinted at him, his lips parted slightly in disbelief. After a few long moments he finally demanded, "What the _Hell_ are you talking about?No. Nevermind. Just find him for me."

"Find who?"

"Death! Didn't I just—"

"Oh! You mean _Death,_ the entity. I thought that you meant 'death' as a general concept. Well, either way I'm not entirely sure that I can find it…_him_ for you. I don't think he would appreciate it if I simply called and asked where he was," replied Ryou sensibly.

"Isn't there some sort to tracker on him? On his car? I know damn well that you keep tabs on _my_ car," Bakura accused him.

"I don't know what you're talking about," murmured Ryou innocently as he began to clumsily shuffle papers on his desk. "Anyway, Death doesn't have a car. He has a…" He paused to search for the word. "A motorized-bicycle," he pronounced finally, though with some dissatisfaction. It didn't sound quite right...

"A motorcycle," corrected Bakura. "It's the same satanblest thing. Two wheels, four, all that matters is that it goes in and out of this world. And aren't you supposed to know where in and out of this world _everyone_ goes?"

Ryou shook his head. "Not the Rare Hunters and most certainly not the Board. It's none of my concern what they do. They have their own mechanisms for balancing each other. I hope you won't think me to be prying unnecessarily, but what exactly do you need Death _for_?" asked Ryou curiously.

"That's none of your concern either," snapped Bakura irritably. "Just let me out of here. I'll figure it out for myself."

The clerk hesitated. "I don't think I ought to if…if you're going out to hunt Death. It's a silly risk to take, and for what?" He leveled his gaze with the demon's and said earnestly, "I wish you wouldn't. Whatever your vendetta is,any petty vengeance you might conceivably obtain couldn't possibly be worth…" he trailed off looking both thoughtful and slightly embarrassed. It really had been a stupid thing to say. In all honesty, the words had begun to lose their sense as they left his mouth. Bakura wasn't like that. He could hold a grudge for centuries, but he would only act on it if it were profitable. What could be profitable about randomly attacking a member of the Board?

"You think that I'm going to avenge my own death?" Bakura asked, the skepticism on his face creeping into his voice.

"Well, I did suppose…I mean, why else would you…? Uhm…"

Bakura threw his head back and laughed jarringly from the depths of his chest, making Ryou jump.

"You're one to tell _me_ not to take risks," he said acidly.

"What?" asked Ryou, bewildered. What was that supposed to mean? What risk had he taken that Bakura could possibly know of? He was careful, always careful…

"Anyway, why would I waste my energy on that?" Bakura demanded scornfully, cutting off Ryou's train of thought. "I've been dead for millennia! This isn't even the same Reaper, and it's not as if doing anything to him would accomplish anything for me besides loading on a few more centuries in Hell. Maybe you can defeat Death, but you can't defeat _death_, the afterlife. Even if I could kill him it wouldn't bring me back from the grave."

Ryou drew in a sharp breath.

"Is that what you want? The life you once had?" he asked.

Bakura looked startled.

"Because sometimes," continued Ryou without waiting for an answer, "that is what I want above all else. But other times, I think I should hate to go back, to live like I did." He shook his head sadly. "It could never be the same. Or, rather, it would be exactly the same, but I don't think that I would be able to stand it all again." He raised his eyes."Would you?"

Ryou had never expected an answer, but Bakura had a habit of surprising him.

"Life was…simple then," said demon after a long pause. "Gold. Run. Sand. Beer. Existence was pitiful. Still is. What use would I have for it? To make myself a foolish, ignorant mortal again…no. Dying was the best thing that ever happened to me," he concluded bitterly.

"Oh, no!" protested Ryou. "I'm sure being alive was much better than being dead. One can love life or despise it, but death does not make itself susceptible to such passion. The only emotion it really evokes is a vague sort of remorse, but that...that isn't the same sort of thing. It doesn't mean very much when there's nothing to be done about it. At least...that's how I feel."

"Remorse," repeated Bakura, delicately but hastily removing the word from his mouth as if it were some sort of filth. Ryou watched with fascination as Bakura's right hand slowly crept up towards his heart. Had his words really touched him so…Oh, he was just fiddling with some paper in his inside coat pocket.

"I need to leave,"announced Bakura flatly.

Ryou silently abandoned his post and went dutifully to go open the portal.

* * *

It hadn't really occurred to Joey that he had no idea where he was going, at least not until he was so far down the erratic passageway that he had no sense of how to get back. That figured. He absentmindedly rolled a stone beneath the sole of his shoe as his gaze shifted back and forth between the two identical branches of hallway in front of him. The passage had finally split, and since he had ruled out going back, he had only two choices: left or right.

Well, it _probably_ wasn't a matter of life and death. He would _probably_ end up in the right place eventually. Probably.

But just in case it did matter, he was kind of feeling the left one. Not that it looked any better than the other one, but it didn't look any worse either, did it?

Of course, now that he was really looking about it, the left one did look just a _little_ bit dimmer, making it almost imperceptibly more sinister…Maybe he should go with the right one? Wait! What if that was what they _wanted_ him to think?

Joey groaned. This sucked. Royally. Kaiba would have known which way to go, and even if he didn't, at least Joey wouldn't have to think about it.

"Eeny, meeny, miny…"

No, that was no good. It always ended up on the side opposite the one you started on. He had known that since he was six. It was time for a new plan entirely. Joey bent one arm over his eyes and stuck the other one straight out in front of him. He spun.

Okay, so maybe spinning around in a circle until he got so dizzy that he crashed into a wall hadn't been the most scintillating plan he had ever come up with, but the wall he had crashed into had been inside _one_ of the hallways, so the plan wasn't a _complete_ failure. In fact, it could almost be called a victory. A victory for Kaiba, though he probably wouldn't have appreciated it if he were there.

Joey steadied himself against the wall until the inside of his head decided to get off the merry-go-round. He couldn't do this every time he came to a fork in the road. He'd have to either find a place where there were no hallways or come up with a better system. He thought about it carefully as he began to walk. It wasn't like he had a coin he could flip. Maybe he could flip his shoe? But it'd take forever to get it to land right without rolling over on its side…

Or maybe he could just go through this bright red door. Joey stopped short in front of it wondering where the Hell it had come from and, more importantly, where the Hell it led. A new color probably meant a new level of Hell, but he couldn't remember which one was supposed to be next; he had just taken them as they had come. Would he be able to make it through a whole level on his own? Before, Kaiba had always managed to get them through, but now…now he didn't have Kaiba to tell him what was right and wrong. He rested his hand hesitantly on the doorknob. On the bright side, if he went through here he could be pretty sure that he was going in the right direction. After all, wasn't this what they had been doing before, passing through the different stages of Hell? But was that even what he wanted to do? It hadn't accomplished anything so far except for nearly getting him trapped in the afterlife a few hundred times. Was it worth it?

His Adam's apple bobbed. Yeah. Yeah, it was. He wasn't just doing this for kicks. He wasn't even just doing it for himself anymore. He gently twisted the knob and pushed inwards.

* * *

The world was a mess. Everything was topsy-turvy. Where the Hell was he? 'Where _in_ Hell are you,' his mind automatically corrected itself as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. Yes, that was right. He was _in_ Hell. Who had come up with that idea? He groggily made a mental note to fire whoever it was. Unfortunately (or perhaps _very_ fortunately since attempting to fire the Devil would result in the immediate firing of _him_ in a much more literal sense), his mental filing system was not yet up to the task of properly storing new data. It was having trouble enough just trying to readjust itself to functioning at all. That was the problem about falling asleep in the afterlife.

Slowly, the world became clearer. It gradually dawned on him that his arm was moving of its own accord. He observed it almost incuriously. Up, down, level, pause. Up, down, level, pause. Up, this time his head tilted back noticeably as he swallowed air. _He was drinking coffee._ In a manner of speaking, anyway. His mind might have remembered that he was dead, but his body obviously hadn't gotten the memo.

He flung the imaginary coffee cup away in disgust, gritting his teeth as he willed himself not to hear the imaginary tinkling shatter of delicate, but very imaginary, china against the wall. He sulkily propped his chin up on one of his hands and took a more careful look at his surroundings. Now, what else was wrong here?

His jacket. His eyes widened in alarm as he patted himself and the ground around him. Where the Hell was his jacket?

"What the…deuce…?"

He plucked a thin, shimmering piece of something off of one of his shirt buttons. It was a hair. A blonde hair.

All right, just what the _fuck_ had he been doing last night? And why did he have the sinking feeling that Pegasus was involved?

And then, for some reason, it clicked. _Where was Joey?_

He hissed curses. _Now_, it made sense. How could he have possibly forgotten about Joey? The boy must have woken up, found him asleep, and decided to foolishly wander off to go explore or vanquish demons or whatever other sort of derring-do he could dream up, probably putting himself in mortal danger along the way.

Kaiba crossed his arms over his chest. He would come back soon enough. Once he got tired of trying to play the hero he would come crawling back with his tail between his legs. Yes.

Kaiba stared sullenly at the stone wall in front of him.

…But that _idiot_! He was going to get himself killed! Didn't he know that he was still alive? He forced himself stiffly off the ground. He had spent more time than he cared to think about trying to get Joey Wheeler out of here, and if he thought that he could just run off and get the last living part of him killed then he had another thing coming!


	20. Chapter 20

Author's Notes: Well, so much for gettting stuff done over spring break. Le sigh. But I do have this chapter to prove that I wasn't slacking off completely. Now if only I could get my teachers to accept fanfiction in place of actual work...

I'm actually kind of fond of this chapter. Not that there aren't parts that I don't like (because there always will be!), but it was fun to write. I like switching perspectives _way_ too much. You'll see what I mean. I also realized that Joey and Kaiba have been eating up the story. So their parts are kind of smallish this chapter. Even though they're _supposed_ to be the main characters...-headdesk- I can't win, can I?

* * *

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter XX

Joey stepped over the threshold and into a dim, empty room. He breathed a sigh of relief. This wasn't so bad. As long as he could ignore the strange devices on the rows of tables and the ominously swinging heavy iron chains hanging from the ceiling and the stained, rusty drains in the concrete floor and the putrid metallic stench, then he would probably be fine. Just so long as no one was sneaking up on him!

He whirled around violently. There was no one there.

Joey blinked a few times and then straightened up. He had no idea where that had come from. As far as he could tell there had been no signs that anyone else was in the room, let alone sneaking up on him. But his muscles were tense and jerky. And he was getting _ticked off_. But he didn't know why. If no one was following him, shouldn't that have been a good thing?

He snorted as if in disbelief at his own self. He felt himself clenching and unclenching his fists, his fingernails making deep grooves in the flesh of his palms.

Suddenly, his fist came down on one of the tables.

"Fuck dis! All of it!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.

He punched the table again. It creaked. But he wanted to hear it splinter.

"I shouldn't hafta be doin' any a dis! Who da hell do dey tink dey are, makin' me go through _dis _ta get back my own life?! Huh?!" he roared, punctuating each sentence with another slam on the table. "Bastards! All of 'em! Kaiba, too, dat lousy, inconsiderate sonuvabitch! Things get too hard an' he just damn up and quits! Screwed me over!"

He paused, panting as picked the next object of his tirade. His knuckles were red and raw. He looked at them and wondered why. It made him furious. But it also made everything seem kind of senseless. What good was there to shouting and getting his hand bloodied over things that he couldn't change? Sure, it felt good…for awhile anyway, but his hand was beginning to sting…

He brought one of his knuckles to his mouth, wondering how spiritual blood tasted. He wrinkled his nose. Like the normal kind. But he kept it there instinctively. He had no idea how long it would take for cuts to heal here. That's what he got for going around punching random tables. A guy had to have his limits. What had that table ever done to _him_, right? Considering it was Hell, he was surprised that it hadn't gotten up and punched back.

With his free hand he patted the table apologetically, just in case it was entertaining any thoughts of avenging itself. Then he took a look around, this time more objectively. There was a door far away at the other end of the room, but he thought he could make it.

And he did. He opened the door and found himself in what could barely be called a hallway. If he had tried to stand in it, he would have one wall pressed against his back and another against the front of his ribcage. Fortunately, he didn't have to. There was a door straight across the hall. It was short. Even with his hair, Yugi would have been able to walk through it comfortably, but he would have to stoop. He could only imagine what Kaiba would have had to do to get through.

He reached across, half expecting some sort of trap. But the door opened at the barest touch, and he stepped inside.

"Piece of cake," Joey said to himself, smiling jauntily as he straightened up. His hands were on his hips proudly in a stance reminiscent of a victor in battle or the conqueror of a new land.

"Piece of cake?" demanded a boy's raspy voice, blowing him away completely. "What, you think just because we're Envy that means we're going to be _easy_?"

"No one takes us seriously!" protested another childish voice.

"Well, he'll see! They'll all see!"

Joey's heart plummeted as the door slammed shut behind him. He smiled weakly at the group of shadowy figures that were slowly closing in on him.

"Eheheheh…sorry?"

* * *

Now, if he were a temperamental, overactive, melodramatic, blonde idiot (Kaiba momentarily shuddered as he imagined the possibility), where would he be?

Dammit. Why hadn't he stuck a tracker on the boy while he had had the chance? He could be anywhere! He couldn't even assure himself that he was going in the right direction now because there was always the possibility that Joey had gotten turned around and headed the wrong way. He fumed. This was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Why couldn't Joey just stay put?

His feet stopped working, and he snapped out of his unpleasant reverie to figure out why. There was a fork in the road. Just what he needed, more complications. The one on the left led to Wrath while the one on the right led to nowhere. Anyone with an ounce of logic would have chosen the one on the left, and if it had been entirely up to him, then he would have chosen that one without hesitation. But the problem was that he couldn't think logically if he wanted to find Joey. He had to think like Joey. And knowing him he probably would have flipped a coin or spun around in circles until he was so dizzy that he fell into the right one, rather than take the time to walk a few feet into each and notice that one hallway had a door whereas the other had no discernable end.

But Joey also seemed to be the possessor of strong instincts, or what might otherwise be termed 'an obscene amount of luck'. If he _did_ get this far and if he _did_ find himself in a hallway, the odds that he had miraculously chosen the right one would be automatically stacked in his favor simply because he was _Joey_.

Kaiba nodded to himself decisively. Leftward he would go, then, to trample out the vintage where the grapes of Wrath were stored…because once he caught up with that miserable, flea-bitten son of a—

* * *

--of a…of a…Well, to be fair, it probably wasn't Bakura's _mother's_ fault that Ryou's position, well-being, and possibly his existence in this world had been endangered by her scoundrel of a son; there was no need to insult _her_. Bakura, however, would certainly be subject to a ruthless verbal lashing when he returned, though what good it would do Ryou did not know. It was simply a pleasant thought. He had had a great deal of pleasant thoughts in his lifetime, and his deathtime, but few had actually been executed. Truthfully, he probably wouldn't have the stamina to lash _anyone_, verbally or otherwise, with fully conscious premeditation.

The problem was that he continued to have the nagging feeling that maybe, just _maybe,_ he had made some colossal mistake. Maybe Bakura hadn't had anything to do with it at all! Perhaps in all the commotion he had simply misplaced the fateful contract. Misplaced it and failed to come across it in the seven times he had scoured his tiny office. He would hate to falsely accuse an innocent man. Granted, the definition of the word "innocent" would have to be stretched and contorted to new bounds in order to accommodate Bakura to any extent, but there was always the possibility, however slight…

Ryou slumped back in his chair with a disheartened sigh of resignation. Who, exactly, did he endeavor to deceive? This was Bakura, a demon! Just when he had thought that he had managed to evade Hell for good Bakura had to show up and ruin it all. Because that contract, when it got to the Devil, would ruin him utterly. He would be damned for heaven knew how long, and once he managed to get back to Purgatory…_if_ he managed to get back to Purgatory, his afterlife could never be the same. He would never have such a comfortable job; he would never be trusted enough. He would consider himself fortuitous if he ascended the position of errand boy ever again. And he had heard stories. A soul did not have to be in Hell for the Devil to make his afterlife a living Hell.

What had been the chances of such a thing happening? Nearly microscopic, he had been sure. Deep down, he supposed, he must have known that this masquerade could only go on for so long.

Only…only, why Bakura? Of all the souls in Purgatory and Hell, why _Bakura_? Why not a common demon guard or a stringently moral Purgatorian official? Either would have been infinitely more desirable; _they_ would have been forthright in their methods, at least, and he could bear the shame if the process of relocation were hasty. With Bakura he could be guaranteed neither of these things. Rather, he would be unhappily insured of quite the opposite.

Worst of all, Bakura would give him hope where they both knew that there was none to be found. He would be led on, taunted, and made alternately to beg and curse as he was tantalized with the thought of salvation only to have it snatched away. But the end was inevitable; his fall, inescapable.

The demon's eyes haunted his mind, only seeming now to gleam with a red bloodier than ever. He could hear his voice, too, amusement and scorn flitting through the overwhelming pitilessness of his resonant tones.

His body gave up and slouched dejectedly over the desk, knowing that his fate was sealed.

Why, oh why did it have to be Bakura?

* * *

Why him?

Of all the _blessed_ demons in the _blessed_ whole of Hell, why did he have to be the one sent on an impossible mission to retrieve Death? The task was mindless. It required none of the demonic skill and finesse he had painstakingly developed over the course of centuries; all that he needed, all that _anyone_ needed, was pure, blind luck. He would just have to be in the right place at the right time, and even that wouldn't assure him of any success. If Death didn't want to play along, then what was he supposed to do? _Make_ him? Oh, yes, that was brilliant. Who wouldn't he want to grapple with one of the most powerful entities in the universe just for kicks? That sounded incredibly healthful.

Strange, could it be that he was being…_set up_!? He ground his teeth and gripped the steering wheel a little more tightly as he sped through some slow-moving pedestrians. It wouldn't be the first time. The Devil hated to let people go, and the best way to keep them was by sending them on an insurmountable task just so they could fail. He had been through this a few times before. Only he hadn't made a habit of failing.

But was his contract really going to expire that soon? He must have lost track of the time, which wasn't unusual for him. Still, he was dealing with the Devil, and he should have known better than to leave it up to Him to tell him when his time was up.

Well, now that he knew, he wasn't going to let Lucifer win this one.

So…how was he going to find Death?

He had already devised a rudimentary plan, but he could already tell that it would be tedious and almost certainly fruitless. It involved finding a city (like the one he had been sent to) and driving around (like he was already doing) until he happened upon the Reaper he was looking for. After all, in a city people dropped off like flies. Death himself would have to come around to a decent sized one like this at least once every few days. It was just a matter of catching him.

Which city had Ryou sent him to anyway? He recalled hazily that he might have told him that he didn't give a damn. Had the man been feeling creative he might have sent him somewhere out in the Sahara desert. As it was, he had probably just delivered him back to the last place he had come from. That being…Domino City. Not a bad locale for stake-out purposes. He might have been almost gratified if Ryou had chosen it for him on purpose.

But thinking about Ryou… He winced. His hands abandoned the steering wheel to rifle through the contents of his pocket. Yes, for better or for worse, the troublesome parchment was still there. And he still hadn't decided what he was going to do with it.

The street he had been following had narrowed. It wasn't so much a street now as it was a questionably large alleyway leading to the docks. There would be nothing there. Nothing that he would care about, anyway.

He tried to put the car in reverse, but the gear stick seemed to be jammed. He hissed something in a garbled, ancient language and tried to turn, but the steering wheel was stuck, too.

Bakura glowered. Was this one of the Devil's tricks to try and slow him down? It didn't seem likely. If he was sending someone out on an impossible task then there would be no need to sabotage them as well.

He looked through the windshield at his surroundings with narrowed eyes. Water…docks…a pier with a couple of kids sitting at the end of it…more water….warehouses…golden motorcycle with a giant book chained to it? Death was here?!

It was then that the car leapt forward, engine roaring. He slammed on the brakes but all that did was burn the rubber of his tires and produce a hideous screeching sound. He was heading right for the end of the pier, the one with the people on it, of course. They probably wouldn't feel a thing, but he might. He screwed his eyes shut tight and concentrated for one blinding second…

"Oh, fuck."

Bakura stood at the end of the wharf, watching his beautiful red car sink slowly into the water. It would be all right, but it would be Hell to get it out of there. He hated getting wet, even if only spiritually.

His gaze turned towards the golden motorcycle that gleamed like a beacon in the light of the setting sun.

Somebody would be paying for this.

* * *

Malik smiled to himself as he crushed the still feebly beeping cell phone between his hands, thoroughly enjoying snap of the thin plastic plates and the crackle of the intricate wiring. Then, for good measure, he flung the remains as far as he could and watched with supreme contentment as they were swallowed by the waves below, reveling in the silence left in their wake. The silence was, of course, relative considering that he was virtually in the middle of a harbor with seagulls and jet planes flying overhead and the sound traffic from the city in the distance, but that did little to dampen his satisfaction. He had always hated that phone. He could only imagine how infuriated Gozaburo's son would be when he found out, but right now that was of little consequence. Here, wherever he was, the sun was still just peeking out over the lake, bathing the gently lapping waves in gold and painting the sky in lavender. He couldn't think of two more beautiful colors for Nature to clothe herself in. Tonight might be a good night. The first one he had had in a long time.

Somewhere far below he heard the screech of tires accompanied by a loud splash as a car attempted to skid across the water but fell through the glassy surface. He wondered vaguely if that was next in the Book. Then he sighed. He had to get back to work.

He stepped off the steel girder of the loading crane and plunged feet-first into the air, unable to shake the exciting, twisting feeling that always accompanied these rebellious acts; maybe he would die again. But no, not this time. He landed nimbly on his feet in a crouched position, but nearly fell backwards as he saw a man's black shoes facing him. He slowly straightened up, studying the man's face. His features were grim, hardened and brooding; they didn't seem to fit with his mound of fluffy white hair.

He continued to study him, and the man did not look away. It was unnerving the way some of these mortals stared, as if they could see him and see through him at the same time. But the truth was that they couldn't see a damn thing.

"Hmph," he said, prodding the man in the chest defiantly. Foolish, foolish mortals, always thinking that they knew everything there was to know in the world. Always thinking that they could cheat him. But they would come to him in the end, begging, accepting, fighting; it didn't matter.

To his amazement, his hand was quickly and irritably brushed aside.

"The Devil wants you," the man intoned flatly.

"The Devil always wants me," Malik snapped back after a moment of stunned silence. "Who are you?"

"Bakura. A demon by profession." He produced a flashing gold card bearing his name and rank in Latin.

Malik nodded. He had heard the name several times before, usually followed by a few dozen curses and then one last choking gasp for air. He had always presumed it belonged to a high-ranking demon.

"Well, _Bakura_, you can tell him that I'm not coming. And while you're at it, let him know that he and the others can stop calling me, too. I just threw away my phone," he said with a touch of smugness.

A flash of annoyance crossed Bakura's face.

"I think you're coming," he said quietly.

"I think I'm not." His violet eyes dared the demon to suggest otherwise.

Victorious, Malik unchained the Book from his motorcycle and settled on the pavement with it on his lap. He felt Bakura's shadow lingering over him but ignored it and began to skim the list for his next assignment.

He frowned. Where was his name? It wasn't listed for another twenty-four hours! But that…Fate! He hissed between his teeth.

"What do they want me for?" he demanded.

Bakura cocked his head at him curiously. "They want you to bring them Yugi Motou."

"Who the hell is he?"

"How would I know? You're Death, aren't you? You should know everyone."

Malik glared at him. "Yugi Motou," he said to the Book.

Nothing happened.

"Yugi Motou," he repeated, this time more adamantly. He watched and waited. "There is no such person," he declared finally in disgust.

* * *

Yugi Motou sat at the edge of an empty loading dock, dangling his bare feet in the water and watching the sunset with his sneakers and his guardian by his side. The sun had turned the water into liquid gold, and Yugi's features melted into the rest of the world seamlessly as he was swallowed by the same dazzling light. He looked not of this earth, and yet…yet, thought Yami sardonically, he was more a part of this earth than anything. At any rate, _he_ was the one who was supposed to be unearthly.

Yami reached down and put an arm through the water, letting it rush through him, its path undisturbed. It was chilly. He was never sure how accurately he could tell the temperature, but he was fairly certain that he had a general grasp of it at any given time. The extremes were easy; it was the range inbetween that was difficult. The first thing he had actually succeeded with was Yugi who, he had first decided after sleeping next to him for a week, was not hot but not really cold either. It had fascinated him, and whenever he could spare the energy he gave his own aura the same glowing warmth. But the point was, as he forced himself to return to the present, that he was pretty sure that the water was cold, and considering the time of year, his judgment couldn't be too far off. Therefore, Yugi had to be uncomfortable.

"Aren't you cold?" he inquired of Yugi.

"Yeah," said Yugi distractedly.

The response was unsettling.

"It's getting late," Yami observed, leaning forward slightly so that Yugi could see his concerned expression in the highly polished surface of the water.

"Mmm-hmm," agreed Yugi vaguely.

Yami frowned. There was something he didn't like about this place, as pleasant as it seemed. He didn't want to leave so abruptly either; it would unfairly cut short the end of what had been, from what he could remember, the only really good day of his existence. But there was something wrong…

"Grandpa will worry if you stay out so long."

Yugi heaved a sigh but showed no signs of moving.

Something definitely wrong…

"I'll bet that water has all sorts of carcinogens," he said wryly, though something was buzzing in the back of his mind.

Ah, that did it. Yugi jerked his feet out of the water, scowling.

"There's such a thing as being _over_-protective, you know," he protested, though he examined his feet worriedly.

"Let's go," said Yami, suddenly urgent. They just had to get off the dock. Then everything would be all right.

"Huh? What's wrong?" asked Yugi, pulling on his shoes.

"I don't know, just…" _Get off the dock! GET OFF THE—_

He seized Yugi by the waist and thrust them both into the frigid water.

* * *

"Ya—Uglug!"

For a moment all he saw was a flash of red accompanied by the fading roar of a monster. Freezing water choked his words and blurred his vision. He thrashed wildly through in the murky darkness, trying desperately to claw his way out of it, but to no avail. Then, out of nowhere came something like an explosion, a silent but forceful rush of water that threw him backwards, threatening to dash him against the rocks like a piece of flimsy driftwood.

And he did hit something. But it was something warm and soft, pulsating with a faint light. It was seemingly solid and alive, but at the same time it was almost as liquid as his surroundings. It pulled him close, crossing its arms over his chest protectively. He clung to the arms for fear they would slip away, dissolving into the world around him. It was too chimerical to be real, but it had to be. For his sake.

They burst through the surface. Besides the gentle slap of waves the only thing he could hear through his clogged ears was his own breathing as he gasped for air again and again, each gulp slowly relieving the painful void in his chest. The arms were still around him only now one of them was holding his head above the churning water.

_It was Yami._

The revelation was sudden but not surprising. Who else would it be? There had been no one with him and no one nearby. It slowly occurred to him why it was so disturbing. He had always thought of Yami as a spirit; sure he was a person, but he was also just a strange place in the air. He had never associated him with the solidity and comfort of human touch. Somehow it seemed to make him a different being altogether.

Then, he realized something else; he could see the arms wrapped around him without the aid of a reflection. It wasn't perfect. The spirit didn't appear to him with the same visual clarity he had been used to; he seemed more or less translucent. But still...

"I can see you," he said faintly.

"Hmm…?" asked Yami, sounding uneasy and preoccupied. Yugi swore that he could feel the vibration of the other man's chest down his back.

"You're shivering."

He felt himself being lifted back onto the dock. He _was_ shivering, but the air of the freshly born night wasn't making it any better. His body wished that he could have been left in the water with Yami's warmth still shielding him.

But there was no doubt now that he could see Yami. Though the world around him was darkening, he could still see the ghostly apparition of the man in three-dimensional form as he floated out of the water, looking completely dry. He could even here the soft thud of his boots as he landed on the wooden slats beside him.

But he wasn't looking at him at all. His eyes were focused far away. Yugi looked over his shoulder to see and found himself staring at two shadowy figures in the distance. His shivering transformed into a violent shuddering. He had to get out of here. The deals that people made down at the docks in the dark were not the type that he wanted to get accidentally involved with.

"We should get out of here," he whispered.

"Yes," said Yami, nodding agreement.

Yugi got to his feet, hoping that his wet sneakers wouldn't squelch too loudly. He would have to go by those people to get out. Not too close, though. If he cut through the alleyway he would end up on the main road eventually, and he knew where to go from there.

The men spoke freely, with careless abandon. It let him relax a little. Maybe they weren't doing anything illegal. After all, there was no law that said normal people couldn't stay out after dark, too. Maybe they were even security guards for one of the scattered warehouses. He and Joey (but mostly Joey) had had plenty of run-ins with security guards. The worst that would happen is that they would yell at him to go home.

"_Yugi Motou_."

He froze. Had one of the men just said his name? No. It couldn't…He had to be hearing things.

"Yami…" he breathed uncertainly.

"Shh…"

"_Yugi Motou…there is no such person_."

He gasped. He quickly clamped his hand over his mouth and bit down on his tongue, but the sound carried. The two men looked up. One of them started forward, cutting through a slit of light long enough for Yugi to get the full effect of his blindingly white hair.

"You…"

"Run!"


	21. Chapter 21

Author's Notes: Did anyone miss me? Well, school is done, which leaves me time to get back to the finer elements of life, like writing this story. In any case, I sincerely hope to have this story done before I start college in the fall. I have way too many other plots buzzing around in my head that are just dying to be set free, but I don't want to abandon this brainchild after having put so much into realizing it. I consider this my first –real- story, and I intend to see it through to the end.

Well, if you're still reading this, give me a shout out. And I will honestly try to have the next chapter up soon.

* * *

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter XXI

Okay, there had to be a way out of this. If he could just think…but how could he think when these things, people, whatever they were, kept closing in on him? They were short, not much taller than Yugi, and most of them just as slightly built. If he didn't know better, he'd almost say that he had been caught in a movie involving a playground full of freaky, alien-possessed schoolkids. He could have taken any one of them on in a fair fight, but there were so many of the damn things! And he had the feeling that none of them fought fairly.

If he could only reach the doorknob without any of them noticing…His back blocking the view of his hands, he groped blindly for the handle, not daring to take his eyes off of the small swarm encircling him. His sweaty palm slid against the cool metal, and his fingers grasped it in both desperation and relief. He felt the tension in his neck melt away as the knot in his throat loosened, and an easy smile began to pull at the corners of his lips.

"What are you smiling about?" demanded one of the figures in its raspy, boyish voice.

"Nothin'…jus…" His grip on the handle tightened and the smile spread into a grin. "So long, suckers!"

He jerked the handle downward. _Click_.

The wild smile seemed to have been fused to his face because it refused to falter even when he felt the hard resistance against the door knob. With each breath he sucked in through clenched teeth the air that passed right through his leaden lungs. He tried again, though he already knew that the attempt was useless. _Click_, _click_, _clickclickclick_.

Someone snickered. Joey felt the blood rush to his face, but before he could retort he was cut off by a different voice.

"What's going on here?" the voice demanded. It rippled over the walls in a resounding echo that seemed to swallow them whole. It had the same annoying high-pitched, pre-pubescent timbre of the other voices, but it also had something that the others didn't: authority. The figures that surrounded Joey huddled together and cowered before it.

"_Well_?" the voice snapped testily.

Some of the figures began to whimper, and then one of them spoke up.

"This—this _person_ just came in here and insulted us." His voice was like the whining drone of a hundred mosquitoes. Joey's skin prickled, but he resisted the sudden inexplicable urge to scratch himself. "He said that he thought that this was the _easiest_ level of Hell! He thinks that everyone else is better than us!"

"He _what_?" shrieked the voice.

"Dat's not what I said!" protested Joey.

"Yes it is!" shouted mosquitoes-for-voicebox.

"No it ain't!"

"Is too!" the crowd of figures chorused.

"Is n—"

"Then what, exactly, _did_ you say?"

Joey started. It was the same voice that had boomed from everywhere just a few seconds ago, only now it was coming from right in front of him. Starting at the back of the room panels of lights on the ceiling began to turn on in quick succession until he could see before him a childish god, a tiny Greco-roman statue. The only thing wrong about him was his hair, which was the impossible blue-green of spearmint gum. He was dressed in a classic schoolboy's uniform, the kind that Joey had never actually _seen_, but knew only at secondhand from countless books and movies. The kind that involved long shorts, high collars, and shiny shoes. But instead of being any traditional color, like navy blue, this boy's uniform was snow white and embellished with gold embroidery in a swirling pattern that didn't look like any sort of school emblem. His arms were crossed over his chest in an air of superiority, and etched on his small, perfectly chiseled face was a frown that seemed somehow familiar, and yet…implacable. Joey bristled. Something about the kid riled him. The way he looked, the way he stood, the way he talked made Joey feel like he was a rich, spoiled brat who needed a good punching. Who was this punk to be looking down at him with the same condescension as someone like…like…

"Are you going to answer me or are you just going to stand there like an idiot?"

…Kaiba. No way.

"I'm not an idiot," Joey muttered stupidly for lack of anything else to say. He was too busy gaping to come up with a creative response.

"Circumstances suggest otherwise," the boy said, sniffing haughtily. And then as an afterthought, as if to clarify in case his words had been too difficult for Joey to grasp, he added, "You're wasting my time."

There was no doubt about it. The kid had Kaiba written all over him, right down to the trademarked glare that he was bestowing upon Joey this very instant. But he couldn't actually _be_Kaiba because a) Kaiba was unconscious/dead in the middle of a hallway between Sloth and Wrath, b) Kaiba would know who he was and what he was doing here, and c) Kaiba did not have green hair. Logic prevailed. This kid was definitely not Kaiba in body, and probably not Kaiba in spirit, a thought which had crossed his mind; he had considered for a moment that Kaiba might have decided to come back and haunt him in the form of a possessed schoolchild. It was sure sadistic enough, but Kaiba would probably find it too inconvenient to actually carry out a plan like that. Besides, it probably wasn't even possible. Hopefully.

"Right…" said Joey. "Right. I'm wastin' yer time, my time, everybody's time, so I guess I'll just get goin'."

The boy snapped his fingers and all the figures stepped forward to block his path. Except they weren't figures anymore. Now that there was light he could see that he was standing in a group of what amounted to schoolkids after all. Definitely the stock cast of possessed schoolchildren movies everywhere. And all of them had the exact same shade of green hair.

"Holy…"

"This isn't holy! None of this is!" shouted one of the boys at him. His glasses flashed in the light, blocking the eyes behind the lenses from view. He recognized the voice as the one that sounded like a swarm of insects.

"Shut up, Weevil. Did I say you could talk?" the boy in charge snapped.

Weevil…Could you beat that? A kid named _Weevil_. Joey thought his guts might burst from trying to hold back the laughter. It wasn't that funny when you thought about it, but Joey was reaching a breaking point, and that had to be the funniest thing he had heard in ages.

"Now, I want _you_ to answer my questions."

Joey nodded dumbly, not trusting himself to open his mouth. The corners of his lips were still twitching upward sporadically.

"Question one, what is your name?"

"Joey, what's yers?" he replied with what he hoped sounded like nonchalance.

"And what are you doing here, _Joey_?" continued the boy, ignoring his question.

"I toldja, I'm just passin' through."

"You're a tourist?" asked the boy doubtfully.

"Er…yeah. Yeah, I'm a tourist," asserted Joey, praying that statement would get him out of here unscathed.

"So you took the elevator? Or did you just sort of pop up here?"

"Uh…" The questions were asked innocently enough, but Joey caught the calculating flash in the boy's eyes. Was this a test? Was there a right answer?

"Neither," pronounced Joey finally. "I walked. The long way."

The boy frowned in a way that Joey translated to mean that he had _owned_ that test. Yeah, take that you green-haired freak, he thought smugly.

"Did you see Bandit Keith from Greed on your way down?"

Oh boy, not another one of these. Would it be better to stick to the truth again?

"I didn't see anybody 'cept da people in Lust. And you guys. Place seems kinda empty."

"Are you comparing us to Lust?" interjected another boy, nearly spitting in hysteria. "Are you saying that just because we don't go on vacation the same time as everyone else that that means Satan thinks we're less important? Is that it, huh?"

Joey stared back at him blankly, his jaw slackened.

"Oh my Infernal Lord. That's it isn't it? He hates us! He thinks we're freaks! He's trying to—"

"Espa," snarled the leader, warning him back. "I already told you, he does this because we're _special_. His Hellishness wants to set us apart from all the lamebrains who make up his realm, a group who you will become a part of if you think of insisting otherwise."

"But Lust—"

"Lust never gets off because they're a bunch of pigs. Now stop talking about it!" the boy said sharply.

Joey coughed rather indiscreetly. "So, can I, uh, continue da tour?"

"Oh, I guess so," the boy replied sourly.

Joey wove his way through the crowd of kids in what he hoped was the general right direction, eyeing the equally sour-faced minions uneasily.

"No, stop. Wait."

Joey froze in place. No. No, no, no. Was it too much to ask to just get out of here? He hadn't found out what the sadistic little freaks did to people here, but he really didn't want to stick around to make the mind-blowing discovery. Gritting his teeth, he turned to face the boy who had called him back.

"Where did you get that jacket?"

* * *

Yugi couldn't see any reason why he wasn't obeying Yami's perfectly sensible order to run. And yet he certainly wasn't moving.

"Yugi, run! Yugi! Yugi…" the urgency faded from the spirit's voice as it morphed into helplessness as the white-haired man drew nearer.

"Y-you're—you're," Yugi stammered.

"You're that kid," the man interrupted pensively. "The pharaoh's ward."

"Bakura," Yugi breathed. The memories flashed through his mind. The white-haired man. The red car. The stranger who couldn't see him, who had called him 'schizophrenic'. The voice. Yami's voice, making it all go away.

"And you're Yugi. Yugi Motou?"

"What do you want, Bakura?" Yami hissed, gliding swiftly between Yugi and the man.

"I don't want anything. The Board does. They want _him_," he replied, nodding towards Yugi.

"No they don't," Yami contradicted.

"Look," Bakura began with excruciating patience, "there is no reason in Hell why I would lie about something like this. We both know that I would probably get my license revoked for insinuating that the Board had ordered someone to come to them when they had not."

"I know you Bakura. And I know that you've already worked twelve ways around any rule, legal or not, but I'm warning you to stop it. I have my own rules in this world, and if you so much as look at Yugi again, I will enforce them. I'm not your Devil. You won't be able to talk your way out of _my_ retribution."

"You don't know me. Do you honestly think that if it were up to me I would _want _to lay eyes on you or…'Yugi' again?" Bakura snarled. "Besides, even your precious code of honor, or whatever you want to call it, doesn't rank higher my authorization from the Board to use whatever means necessary to get this kid."

"You are threatening my charge, you son of a jackal," Yami spat viciously. His entire form began to meld with the darkness of the night and twin hollows of liquid gold began to bubble in his palms. "And _my_ authorization from the Board says that I am to use any and every force at my disposal to divest him of threats to his person."

Bakura shrugged. "Have it your way."

He snapped his fingers, and without warning, they were encircled by a raging inferno. The fire blossomed, sending a powerful wave of heat in Yugi's direction as it stretched its petals toward the stars.

"Yami," Yugi whimpered. He reached out, craving the solid, reassuring contact that he had only just discovered in connection with the spirit. But it was no longer there. His hand slid into a cold, inky void that recoiled from his touch. He grasped at some of the darkness, but it spilled through his fingers like jet-black sand.

Suddenly, Bakura laughed, a sound that began as a low, throaty chuckle, but quickly escalated uncontrollably. The firelight danced on his face, contorting it as the flickering light gave his features new shape and lit his eyes with a maniacal red blaze. An inhuman sound that fittingly came from something equally inhuman. It ripped through the roar of the fire like the blade of a knife. It was a clearer, colder, sharper version of the laughter from his nightmares.

"_Yami_?" Bakura scoffed between laughs. "You think your name is Ya—"

"It wasn't my name," Yami agreed unapologetically. "But it is now. Yugi gave it to me. I require no other."

For a long moment there was an eerie stillness in the tension between them. Neither side let down guard, but neither side showed any sign of attacking either. Yugi listened to the flames and watched as Bakura tilted his head upward slightly and gave Yami a strangely contemplative sideways glance.

"I see. And that's your connection. Your name," Bakura said more than asked.

"Yes," Yami said quietly. "That is our connection."

"Touching," muttered a new voice. "Bakura, why are you wasting time?"

A hand broke through the wall of fire, leading the way for the rest of a body. A boy stepped into their circle, shaking the sparks from his blonde hair. They scattered across the ground and landed at Yugi's feet before dying.

"This isn't an argument. I want him," he said with an air of supreme authority. "_We_ want him," he corrected himself.

"We?" Yami asked, repositioning himself so he was facing both the new man and Bakura.

"We, the Board."

"And who are you to—"

"Death," the boy said simply.

"Death," Yami repeated, frowning. "You may be a Rare Hunter, but do not mistake yourself for Death. I have known Death, and—"

The boy didn't wait for him to finish. He strode towards Yugi and before either of them could stop him, he thrust his hand into Yugi's chest.

Yugi choked and tried to gasp, but no matter how hard he inhaled, he couldn't even get the air down his throat. He felt his knees sinking towards the ground as his vision began to fail him, only coming back in spurts of desperation as he tried to force himself back into consciousness. The only thing holding him up was Death's cold grip on something beyond his heart.

He became aware as his body shut itself down completely. His head lolled. His body was limp, yet he was more conscious than ever before. But there was nothing he could do. Nothing but watch. He was like a puppet, and the puppet-master was standing in front of him, watching steadily and expressionlessly even as the fire burned around them, flashing its light from every which way on his angular bronze features. Everything around them changed continuously, but this didn't. They could have been standing like this for a second or an eternity. It didn't matter.

An engulfing shadow cast itself behind the puppeteer on the backdrop of flames. Shimmering golden vines burst forth from its depths and attempted to wrap themselves around him, but their crushing grip slipped right through the impervious boy.

"Can you fight Death and win? Can anyone?"

He spoke while barely moving his lips, his expression yet unchanged as this chaos swirled around him. He was addressing someone else, Yugi knew, but the words were spoken to him, the bleak gaze of the lavender eyes never leaving his face. In some unimaginable way, he was getting stronger. He couldn't use his body, but okay, maybe he didn't need it.

Death let go.

Suddenly unsupported, Yugi fell to his knees, coughing and gulping in air that had become surprisingly coarse and painful to breathe as his heart pounded wildly. Warm, pulsing life rushed through his small frame, nearly overwhelming him, but at the same time, his newfound strength was sapped from his body.

"Yugi!" Yami shouted. He turned on Death. "What did you do to him?"

"Nothing," said Death jadedly. "Nothing at all."

"Nothing?" Yami shouted. "You call this _nothing_?"

He leapt towards the offender but stumbled out of the air and fell to the ground at the boy's feet.

"Nothing," Death reiterated tiredly. "That's kind of the whole point."

Yami reached up a shaking, inky black hand and tried to grasp the bottom of the boy's robe to pull himself up. Death sidestepped away from his fallen form and shook the dust off of his violet cloak.

The darkness began to evaporate from Yami's figure in swirling, smoke-like wisps, leaving his natural appearance exposed. To Yugi, he looked more human now than he ever had. His regal form was sprawled on the concrete, his fingernails digging so deeply into cracks that it seemed likely that they had made them. He panted through bared teeth as if he actually needed the air, and his eyes held such a look full of venomous hatred that the drop of sweat trickling down his brow was almost an insolent mockery of his demeanor.

He pushed himself to his knees and then forced himself into a crouched position, still breathing heavily and somehow managing to keep his hostile gaze locked on Death's face.

The boy looked back indifferently for a while and then shifted his attention to Yugi.

"Death?" Yugi asked hesitantly.

"Call me Malik. You might as well," the other boy replied. He offered him his hand.

"Get away from him!" Yami snarled, springing up to lunge towards Malik. He fell through him once again, landing face-first on the ground with a sickening thud.

"Yami!" Yugi called anxiously.

"Yugi, you have to—"

"How long do you think it's going to take for him to get this?" Malik asked Bakura, cutting the guardian off.

"Give it another hour or two," Bakura said brightly. "He's pretty dense."

Yugi staggered to his feet, noticing for the first time that the raging fire had died down and was now only a small circle of flames licking the soles of Bakura's shiny black shoes.

"What are you doing to him?" he demanded. "What the hell is going on?"

"Well, he's supposed to protect you, right?" Malik said, gesturing to Yami, who had managed to pull himself to his feet as well.

"I…think so…"

"Yes," Yami supplied assertively. "So how…? Why…?"

He stared down at his hands with a look of utter self-loathing.

"He's a Board member, you lackwit," Bakura drawled gloatingly. "Even the great kings can't defy death."

"That shouldn't matter," Yami hissed sharply. "He's a threat to Yugi, and as far as I am concerned, that supersedes—"

"You're both complete fools!" Malik snapped. "What did I do to him? Nothing! I'm not any sort of threat because I hold no power over him, which is why you can't harm me. Don't you understand? Do you not comprehend what this means?"

Yami and Bakura exchange equally blank looks.

"Y-you mean…I can't die?" Yugi's voice faltered.

"You can die. You will die. But only when you want to."

"Only when I…what?"

"Come here."

Malik began to walk back towards the loading crane, to a motorcycle that was parked there, and Yugi dazedly followed. For a second, Yami looked as if he might lunge at Malik again, but seemed to content himself with trailing along at a short distance.

On the ground was a massive golden book, and Malik dragged it towards them.

"I need you to sign your name," he said. "Anywhere is fine."

"Why?" asked Yugi suspiciously.

"Do you want to live forever?" Malik asked.

Yugi hesitated. "No," he said finally. "That would be awful."

"Exactly. So you're choosing to die."

"You mean right now?" Yugi asked in alarm.

"Right now," Malik affirmed.

"But how can I choose? How can I just—just decide now when I should die? What if…what if…"

"It's easier to just do it."

"But my friends…my family…"

"People die every day. As far as they're concerned, why not you? They'll get over it."

"But…but…"

Malik watched him curiously. "You really love life, don't you?"

"Of course I do! It's everything—everyone to me," Yugi said helplessly.

"I don't think that's normal. Not for…everyone that I've known in your position wanted to die. For them Death couldn't come soon enough."

"Should I want it?" Yugi asked anxiously. "Is it wrong to want to live?"

"No," Yami answered for him. "That's what should be normal."

He gave Yugi an encouraging smile and placed what felt like a very solid hand on his shoulder. Yugi smiled back faintly.

"So you won't sign," Malik summed up flatly.

"No," Yugi said. "Not…not without a reason. I want to die eventually, but I don't want it to have to be right this instant."

Malik slammed the book shut, frowning.

"I don't think this has ever happened before," he said, looking away.

He felt Yami tense up beside him.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"I need to make a call," he said, looking meditatively over the water.

They stared at him expectantly.

"I just threw away my phone," he explained.

"Take mine," Bakura muttered tossing a small metallic rectangle the color of gunmetal as he began to walk away. "I never use it anyway. Dial 666 for Satan's speed dial. He'll probably connect you up."

"Where are you going?" Malik demanded.

"First, I'm going to get my car," he said irritably. "And then, I'm going back to Hell. If you don't need me, then I have work to do. And I'd rather not be in His Majesty's presence any longer than necessary," he added, bowing towards Yami mockingly before turning on his heel to leave.

Yami glowered at his receding form, but Malik didn't take the time to linger. He dialed.

"Hello, Pegasus?" Malik said into the phone. "It's Death. I need you to—Yes, this is your demon's phone. I want to talk to Fate. I don't care if she already knows, just give her the fucking phone." There was a moment's pause, and then, "Isis? This kid, Yugi Motou, didn't show up in the Book and—of course you know. Anyway, he doesn't want to—what? Wait, _what_? Isis?"

He pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it as if it had suddenly spat flames at him. Then he snapped it shut.

"What did they say?" Yugi inquired.

Malik looked at him disbelievingly. "She said that if you won't come to us, then we'll have to come to you."

* * *

Ryou tried not to stare at the small gathering of people. He had never seen them before, but they had such a collective air of confidence that he was sure that they couldn't be fledgling demons.

"Er…all of you need permits…?" Ryou asked doubtfully.

"Yes," said the only lady of the group. The piercing gaze of her blue-green eyes was strangely inescapable. "It should not be a problem."

Ryou ducked his head nervously and busied himself tapping on the keys of the keyboard as he tried to decide how, exactly, he was going to tell these imposing figures that what they were asking for would indeed pose a problem. A _considerable_ problem. He desperately endeavored to get around telling them directly, though he didn't know why he was taking so much care not to offend them. He no longer had problems telling demons what could and could not be done, but these people…

"Do you know how to drive?"

The green-haired gentleman with mismatched eyes looked doubtful. "Is such a skill necessary? Still, a mechanized chariot cannot be hard to master."

"I can drive," the mustachioed man said gruffly. Ryou's eyes widened in horror as he stubbed out his cigar on the teakwood desk.

"Oh, good," he squeaked.

He fiddled some more with the computer.

"I don't see why we couldn't have done this earlier if you already knew—" the mustachioed man started to say.

The lady cut him off. "The world progresses in many different directions. One must first see which path is to be taken," she said cryptically.

The fourth person, who had not yet spoken but whose amber eyes had studied him intensely through the entire course of this encounter, leaned over his desk, letting the ends of his long silver hair tickle its surface.

"My dear boy," he said softly. "Don't you think you've dawdled long enough? Bring us those permits."

Ryou flushed, trying to draw away from him.

"Of course, sir, but I'll need your names to check for the proper authorizations…"

"Guess," the gentleman said, a sardonic smile playing at the corners of his lips.

"Er…I'm sorry…?" Ryou said uneasily.

The smile broadened. "Can you guess my name? I'll give you a hint. Take 'the d' out of 'the devil.'"

"E…vil?"

The man clapped his hands. "Oh, very good!"

He looked wonderingly at the others.

"Fate," said the woman simply.

"Time," said the green-haired man.

"War," said the man with the mustaches.

His hands shook as they darted for the sign-out book. He handed Evil the pen.

"I need you to…"

The entity signed something unreadable with a flourish. It glowed as the marks burned themselves into the page.

Ryou choked. This was real.

"I, er…" He scrabbled around his desk desperately, trying to locate the permit papers.

"Of course, we don't need most of this for you," he said loudly and shakily as he wildly crossed out large sections of the form. "If you'll each just sign, and then I'll sign, and then we'll get you a coach, and er…yes, right there, that's right."

He gathered up the papers in his arms, clamored for his keys, and sprinted down the stairs.

"Just choose a carriage," he called back to them. "Please, have any one you want."

He forced his hands to stop quavering for long enough to fit the keys into place and type in the passcodes. Work, he forced himself to think. Just work. It's the Board, his mind screamed. No, that didn't matter, he just had to do his work.

There was a crunch of metal as a black car crashed into a parked silver one on the opposite side of the garage.

"Goddamn," said War, pulling a cigar out of his pocket and clenching in between his teeth. "It's been years since I touched one of these things."

Ryou smiled nervously.

The wheels screeched, leaving long black marks on the floor as the car accelerated and swerved.

Please go through, please go through, please go through, Ryou prayed.

For once, his prayers were answered, and promptly.

The car vanished through the portal, leaving the scent of burning rubber in its wake.

Ryou heaved a sigh of relief. His muscles still quivered, but he felt free. He reset the portal, gathered his belongings, and was just starting back for his office when he heard the roar of a powerful engine and was suddenly mowed down in his path by a steaming red car. The car was so hot that the water on it was literally evaporating off of it in plumes. Supine beneath it, Ryou could feel the waves of superheated water as they licked his bare face. The metal of the undercarriage made a ticking sound as it cooled. Part of his mind wondered how the car had gotten wet in the first place.

He watched as a pair of black shoes stepped out of the car, sporting a peculiar aquatic plant and trailing drops of water on the ground. Their owner was muttering dangerously under his breath. The shoes began to walk away.

"Excuse me! Excuse me, sir!" Ryou called, rather severely. "Are you going to just leave me here?"

The shoes halted in their course and the string of violent muttering stopped. Ryou observed with satisfaction as they turned back towards him. He could, of course, probably manage to get out from underneath the car by himself, but there was something about this brand of blatant rudeness that he found intolerable. He couldn't just let demons run him over whenever the mood so struck them.

The feet stopped right in front of the hood of the car so that Ryou had to tilt his head back as far as possible in order to see them.

"What makes you think I give a damn about what happens to you?" a familiar voice asked in a tone that said the owner had no intention of helping anyone.

Ryou froze. If his ears did not decieve him, then this was the last person who he wanted to upset right now. This was the man who had his contract, who held his very afterlife in the balance. He struggled to worm his way out, but the front wheels of the car had pinioned his sleeves to the ground with unsettling accuracy.

"Well?" the voice demanded.

"I think you'll find that you need me to get back in," Ryou replied as politely as he could, trying to hide his exasperation.

"Oh," Bakura said lightly as he bent down to look under his car, "it's you."


	22. Chapter 22

Author's Notes: Supafast update! Whoo! I love you guys. Don't expect this often, though. The next chapter will probably be up in a more "normal" timeframe, like a week or two.

No one told me Kingdom Hearts was so addicting! I'm on the second one and I have to keep pulling myself away from it to get real stuff done. Don't anyone dare tell me how it ends!

I'm growing very fond of Axel, who would probably make a very decent demon. He also has a funny accent. In case you couldn't tell from the way I write Joey and Ryou, I like funny accents. I try very hard to giveeach character a distinctive voice and speaking pattern, though sometimes they kind of mesh. Joey's real easy cuz I can be kinda lazy an' sloppy an'…well, y'know. Even though it's sometimes hard ta figure out what he's sayin', he's pretty direct. Ryou, on the other hand, takes a bit more effort. One must thumb through one's mental lexicon in order to find words that are not _quite_archaic, but can still be used and understood by the general populous, albeit in a manner perhaps more florid than that which they are used to. Yugi is probably the most difficult because I try to keep him the most "normal". He's kind of…unsure of a lot of things, and because he's so nice to everyone, it's hard to keep him from coming across as completely…well, spineless.

I'm sure you didn't need that lovely insight, but there is a point to it. My fear is that this style of writing may turn some people away. I've heard a lot of people say that they don't read stories where the author puts particularly Joey's accent on the page. I've also read stories where his accent was just simplified, though I always find it funny when he _thinks_ to himself with a slight Brooklyn accent. I guess what I want to know is, is this a major turnoff? I'm obviously not going to get rid of it at this point, but I could probably try to simplify it if my dear readers are banging their heads against the wall about it. And just for future reference, y'know?

I should probably make a poll or something.

* * *

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter XXII

"What jacket?" Joey asked, feigning innocence.

"The one you're wearing," the green-haired boy intoned flatly. "The blue one with the bullet holes in the back. It doesn't fit you."

"Oh," Joey said glumly. "Dis jacket. I borrowed it. From a…a friend a' mine."

"Name him."

"I don't see why I shou—"

"What are you here for? You're not a tourist at all, are you? How did you get that jacket?" the boy demanded, firing questions at Joey without even waiting for their corresponding responses.

"I toldja, a friend a' mine—"

"Don't be stupid! I know the man who owns that. Did you steal it?"

"I, uh…"

"Do you know what happens to thieves in the afterlife?"

"But I didn't—"

"_Do you_?" the boy insisted hotly.

"Well, no, but—"

"You have to get rid of it _now_," he said urgently.

"What?"

Joey was caught off-guard. Give up Kaiba's jacket? He couldn't do that. But he was surprised by the tone of what sounded like genuine concern from the kid.

"If you're apprehended with stolen property on you…" His voice dropped to a terrified whisper. "You haven't seen it. You've only been through the empty rooms. You haven't seen what they can do to people here. And—and this man—" he choked and averted his gaze. Were those tears welling in his eyes? "I'm sure you only took it to--to help someone, but the man who owns it, you don't understand him. He's powerful. You don't know what he's capable of! Please, give it to me! He won't think of searching someone of my rank. I'll get rid of it for you!"

"Why wouldja do somethin' like dat for me?" Joey asked warily. "I mean, I don't even know ya."

He wanted to believe him, but…

"We all made mistakes," the boy said, spreading his arms widely over the crowd around him. "Simple mistakes. It was a stupid choice to come here, but what can we do? Look at us! Can you see how pathetic we are? Do you know the pain we suffer?"

Joey looked around at the small childish faces, round and clean and untainted. They didn't seem nearly so threatening now. These were just kids, really. He could feel a new sort of anger swelling up inside of him. Who the hell could do something like this to _kids_? The oldest among them was probably still younger than his sister. They couldn't have known what they were doing if they had sold their souls! Heck, he hadn't even known what he had been getting himself into, and he was nearly eighteen! Maybe they were like him. Maybe they had never belonged here.

"We have to live everyday with our stupid mistakes," the boy whispered. He looked up suddenly and his gaze met Joey's. Tears streamed down his face and he curled his small white hands into fists. "I don't want to see anyone end up like us. I want to help you."

Joey's heart felt as if it were weighed down by iron balls.

"Hey, don't worry about it, kid," he said gently. "I've seen enough a' dis place ta know what's good fer me. And, I swear, Kaiba won't mind if I've got dis."

"You know Seto Kaiba," the boy said. His voice had become blank and unreadable.

"Yeah. He's not such a bad guy. I bet…I bet when he comes back, he's gonna help you out. He's gotta. After all, I'm doin' dis for him. Anyway, like I been tryin' ta tell ya, he won't care if I've copped his coat. Or, well, maybe he will, but what's da worst he's gonna do? Bang me against some wall again?"

Joey instinctively reached up to touch the back of his head, wondering if it had bruised from all the doors and walls Kaiba had "accidently" run him into while dragging him down to Hell. It had been so long ago that he had almost forgotten about it.

"You're _friends_with Seto Kaiba?"

"Well, I wouldn't call us 'friends,' not exactly. We're more like…" He searched for the word. Not friends, not buddies…more than acquaintances. Mortal enemies might have once fit, but now…maybe comrades? No, who knew when this kid had died. He might think he was a Communist or something. What was their relationship? Kind of friendly, but it wasn't like they'd chosen to be with each other. Or at least he hadn't. What would Kaiba call it? Something business-y…Together in a 'joint venture' or something like that. There had to be a better word for it.

"We're more like partners," he concluded.

"You…work with him?" the boy asked distantly

"I guess you could say dat," Joey said, straightening up in an attempt to look professional.

"In that case, give me the jacket." The boy's tone had suddenly become dark and violent.

"Huh?" Joey asked, stupefied.

"Give me the jacket or I won't let you out," the boy replied.

"Not a chance!" Joey growled, hugging the fabric close to his body. The kid had tricked him! He hadn't wanted to help him at all. He was just a demon in miniature!

"Get it off of him!" the boy shouted.

Before he knew what was happening, he was suddenly thrown to the floor by a green tidal wave of children. They pulled at the jacket from every direction. They trampled his ribs and tugged at his hair. They smashed his fingers beneath their sneakers and clawed at his face with their tiny nails.

"Stop! Give it—" he half cried before a tiny someone jumped on his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. It soon became a game. Every time he tried to speak, as many as would fit would clamor aboard and bounce on him like a trampoline, shrieking with glee.

"Got it!" a group of shrill voices chorused.

He jerked forward, or tried to, as the trench coat was thrown into the air, fluttering like a blue, blood-stained banner before it was snatched away by a small white hand. Its owner smiled.

"Now, let's get rid of him!" he chirped, beaming. "And lock the door! We don't want the bad man coming back!"

"We don't want the bad man! We don't want the bad man!" dozens of pure, angelic voices chanted.

Joey felt himself be raised upwards in an almost unreal manner. It was like floating. Floating on an inexhaustible sea of ants. He struggled, but it didn't matter which way he turned. There were too many of them for it to matter when any one of them was caught off guard by a flailing limb. He was rolled and tossed over an endless ocean.

"Dere's no point! You can't keep it! He's gonna know dat you've got it!" Joey shouted though he was sure his voice would be lost in the mirthful laughter and shuffle of feet.

Suddenly, everything stopped. He crashed to the ground on the other side of a large steel door.

"Are you going to tell him?" the boy inquired politely, pressing his face to the crack of the door that was still open.

Joey lunged at the barrier, slamming into its resistance. A heavy security chain and three inches of open air were all that separated him from the throat of that little sonofabitch, but he couldn't get past them. The ripple of giggles that came from the other side of the door sounded like mocking shimmers in the air.

"Are you going to tell him?" the boy asked again, smiling sweetly.

"Yeah, I'm gonna tell him," Joey growled. Did he think that he was going to let him get away with this?

The boy's eyes darkened and his lips twisted into a cruel smile unbefitting of the rest of his childish features.

"Good. I'm glad. Now he's going to _have_ to come back. I'm going to make him see me again, and this time…"

He trailed off into a fit of gleeful laughter as the door slammed shut.

* * *

"You—you ran me over," Ryou said, not quite believing it though he was pinned beneath the wheels of the offending automobile.

"You were standing in my parking spot," Bakura explained patiently.

Oh yes, how obvious, thought Ryouscathingly. He was standing in his parking spot. Clearly, this gave Bakura every right to hit him with his car. Under normal circumstances, even Ryou would have been much more loquacious in expressing his lack of gratitude for the disservice rendered unto him, but these were not normal circumstances. He was almost certain that Bakura had his contract, and there was no telling what he might do with it or when exactly he might decide to use it against him.

"I didn't know it was you," Bakura added grudgingly.

Ryou did not know by what means he contrived _not_ to recognize the only other white-haired male in the vicinity, but he clenched his teeth and forced a wan smile.

"It's quite all right, I assure you," he said weakly. He would be looking for an excuse, any excuse…

"Well," Bakura said, "are you going to get up and let me in?"

"I, ah…can't."

"You can't." Bakura's tone was dull and disbelieving, bordering dangerously close to 'annoyed.'

"I can't move, I'm afraid," Ryou clarified hastily. "I seem to be stuck here."

Bakura flattened himself to the ground to scrutinize the situation for himself.

"So you are," he proclaimed finally with a wicked grin. "I must have better aim than I thought."

So he _had _aimed at him, Ryou thought furiously. How dare he? The anger building up inside of him was substantial. He was used to withholding his true feelings for the sake of etiquette, but this went far beyond formalities. He was more or less being coerced into making himself agreeable for a man who could, and doubtless would, ruin him. It was no longer a choice, rather the only method of survival that he could see at his disposal.

He said nothing.

"For Satan's sake, what did I do with…?"

Bakura fumbled with something in one of his pockets and then extracted a lethal looking fountain pen. It's unnaturally sharp nib glittered in the dim light, being the only part of it that was clean. The rest--Ryou gulped—was covered in either a deep crimson rust or… Oh God, he was going to torture him! Hadn't he learned yet that he would tell him nothing? What could he want? And if he wanted so badly then why hadn't he realized that the most powerful weapon in his arsenal was that unlucky piece of parchment?

He squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head away from the demon instinctively. What would he try to make him do?

There came a horrible ripping sound. Was it his spiritual bones and flesh? His chest jerked upwards as if he had been electrocuted. Why couldn't he feel anything?

It came again, this time on his other side, and he jerked his head the opposite way, still waiting for the inevitable pain.

"Go on, get up," Bakura said unsympathetically.

Ryou opened his eyes as he was dragged out rather unceremoniously by his collar. But what…? He looked over himself. He appeared to be intact, but…oh. Oh, no.

"Couldn't you just as well have moved your car?" Ryou asked faintly, fingering the ripped edges of his sleeves. The ragged tears stretched halfway up his forearms and had pulled and bunched the threads all the way up to his elbows. His coat was now completely beyond repair. Of course, that should have been the least of his worries, but…but…it was his coat. There was something almost sacrilegious in his destruction. It was a constant. At times it had been the only thing he owned. Even in the fire it had held up admirably; he had died, but it had not. Most probably, he reflected, he had been buried in it.

"Or I could have just left you there," Bakura retorted, effectively bringing him back to the present.

"But then…"

"Yeah, yeah, then I wouldn't be able to get back in. Not legally, anyway. But someone would've found you. Eventually. Get up."

Ryou obeyed, not wanting to try his temper. Bakura was being surprisingly good-natured about all of this. It was inexplicable, considering how he had been cursing just a few minutes earlier. But there was something about his appearance that he couldn't help but notice was off. Likely, it had been a main contributor to the demon's foul mood.

"Bakura…" he began cautiously. Perhaps it would be better not to say anything at all.

"What is it now?" he growled, though not hostilely.

He deliberated. "You're all wet," he said finally.

"_Beatus id_!"

* * *

Kaiba stood outside the small green door and held his breath. All the other levels of Hell seemed to be on vacation. There was no reason why this one should be functioning normally. In all probability, its members had relocated themselves to gripe about how Sloth had better wallpaper, or whatever else they did in their spare time. But he could havesworn that he had heard voices. One voice in particular whose owner made number five on his list of least favorite people, but only because he had only met him once before. He had the feeling that a second encounter would see him climbing the ranks.

He pushed the door open and bent down to pass through it, bringing himself up to full height as soon as he could without risking hitting his head on anything. A few dozen small heads swiveled in his direction. He studied the nearest faces, but quickly dismissed them. There was no point to trying to find either one of the people he was looking for in this ocean. Doubtless, one of them would soon make his presence known.

"Seto, how good of you to join us."

Kaiba looked around for the source of the magnified boyish voice.

"I must congratulate you on your efficiency. We weren't expecting you quite so soon," the voice continued. Now he could see where it was coming from. A boy in white was moving towards him, and the other green-haired children were parting to make a path for him.

"What did you do with him, Noa?" he said directly. He didn't have time for these little games of formality.

Noa frowned, clearly put off that Kaiba's attention was not focused on him.

"With who?" he asked sulkily.

"Don't play coy. What did you do with Joey?"

"Joey?" Noa questioned one of his many green-haired followers.

"I think he means that stupid blondie."

Noa made a face. "Why would I want anything to have to do with him?" he demanded. "Besides, you probably know more about where he is than I do. He told you I had _this_, didn't he?"

He flourished something long and blue.

"Joey, you—" he started to hiss, but he quickly composed himself. There was no point in making a scene here. "He hasn't told me anything for quite some time. I don't know where he is, hence why I am _looking_for him," Kaiba said scornfully.

"You were coming after _him_?" Noa asked in disbelief. "But what would you—Oh." A sudden realization dawned on his childish face. "_Oh_. That explains it."

"What explains what?" Kaiba demanded impatiently.

"No, now I understand. He came here wearing your jacket. He called you 'partners'. He said that the worst you could do was 'bang him against a wall' again."

"He _what_?" Kaiba sputtered.

"Dammit," Noa murmured. "I knew we should have kept him."

Kaibawas beyond words. Where the Hell had Joey gotten the nerve to say something like that? Was this his idea of a _joke_? And _then _he had handed over his trench coat to Noa Kaiba? _Noa Kaiba_. Not _just_ a sadistic freak in the form of a child. Not _just_ a deranged psychopath with a God-complex. Not _just _the embodiment of Envy itself. But Noa Kaiba. His goddamn step-brother who was bent on ruining his career, further humiliating him, and then killing him. Killing him _again_. It was to this freak that Joey had given not only the clothes he had died in, but enough imaginary fodder to fuel a major tabloid for a year.

"Give me that," Kaiba huffed irritably, snatching his jacket away from the boy and stalking away.

"Where do you think you're going?" Noa protested.

"I'm going to go find Joey." _And then I'm going to strangle him,_ he added to himself.

"You're missing the point!" Noa shrieked. "I have you here, and now I'm going to make you pay for cheating me out of my inheritance. Father will finally see that I should have been—could have been your superior. I'm going to—"

"Some other time, kid," Kaiba said brusquely as he brushed past him. "I'm busy."

"You can't just—I won't let you cheat me out of this, Seto!" he howled with rage.

"I _said_ some other time."

He wove through the crowd of stunned children, waving away the ones who dazedly strayed into his path.

"Stop him!" Noa cried. "Stop him!"

"Try to stop me and I will personally revise all of your contracts to double your terms," Kaiba countered carelessly.

"Don't listen to him! He's lying, he can't do that!"

"Sure I can't. Not without your boss's permission at any rate. Which would be a problem except for the fact that he _sent_ me down here. I don't think he's going to like it if he finds out that you've been hindering my progress."

"You didn't—He didn't—He couldn't—"

"I wish," Kaiba muttered as he unhooked the security chain on the door. "What makes you think I would want to come down here to put up with you?"

"You—"

"Pathetic," Kaiba said with finality as he slammed the door shut.

He did, however, have to pause to make a mental adjustment. It was clear that Noa had reached a new level of annoying. He had definitely knocked Johnson out of the number four spot on the least favorite person list, but did he measure up to Duke? Possibly yes, considering that it had turned out to be Fate and not Devlin who had wrecked his system. Which would have put Fate on the list except he refused to acknowledge her. In any case, he decided, everything would have to be shifted down anyway. Because Joey Wheeler had just blown the competition right out of the water.

* * *

Bakura's hair sprang back into place, granting him an appearance more like that of a demon and less like that of a drowned cat.

Ryou wanted to ask how he had gotten so wet in the first place, but he exercised self-restraint. The mere mention of the fact that he _was _wet seemed to have darkened Bakura's mood considerably, and Ryou was already beginning to regret his recklessness. From this point on, he decided, it might be wise to take up a policy of distant politeness when dealing with Bakura.

Bakura would, of course, insist upon making that impossible.

The demon touched the hood of the car, testing either the heat or the dampness with his fingers. Satisfied with whatever conclusion he had reached, he stretched himself back so that he was half sitting on, half leaning against the machine. He propped himself up with his hands, forcing his shoulders into a sort of perpetual shrug as he crossed one leg over the other at the ankles, the whole time watching Ryou narrowly.

"What's your name?" he said explosively.

Ryou gave him a strained, worried smile. What the deuce was he doing?

"Bakura," he began cautiously. "I'm hardly going to believe that you've forgotten—"

"What. Is. Your. Name?" Bakura repeated, accenting each word menacingly.

He hesitated. "It's Ryou," he said quietly. "You know that."

He couldn't understand what on earth the demon was doing. Was this another one of his games? Was he toying with his mind?

"Ryou?" Bakura asked.

"Yes, Ryou," the secretary agreed warily. It was a precarious situation. If it was a game, then he had no choice but to play along.

Bakura nodded slowly and thoughtfully. Then, with a certain agonizing deliberateness he relaxed his arms and lowered them until his upper body was balancing with his forearms on the satiny crimson surface of the car instead of his hands. It was as if he were lying down on an incline. His chest was thrust out necessarily as his back arched to follow the smooth upward curveof the automobile, and his face was tilted upward at that peculiar angle so unique to him. It gave Ryou the impression that he was looking down at him, even though he was the one who was standing up.

His unwavering gaze from this position made Ryou uncomfortable. There was a riveting indecency in the effortlessness and sheer freedom with which he could expose himself like this. A sort of insolence that Ryou envied and was repulsed by all at once. Perhaps it was a sort of contemptuous statement, flaunting the fact that he could lie so prone without appearing vulnerable whereas Ryou would never have the luxury to ever feel so secure in himself.

"Not Ryou Bakura?" the demon asked finally.

Ryou's eyes widened. Was this a test? How was he supposed to answer that? Since he had met Bakura, he had always been known just as Ryou.

"That…_was_ my name…once…" he said slowly.

"But not anymore," Bakura finished for him. "I made you a new one. It's our…_connection_." He said the last word with a sort of self-mocking sneer.

It was on the tip of Ryou's tongue to tell him that he hadn't _made _his name at all. His father had given it to him when he was born. Bakura had just decided that he wasn't allowed to use his surname because it too closely resembled his own. For some reason, he held back.

"You once said that you'd never want to be associated with me," Bakura said contemplatively. "Is that still true?"

"I rather think that I'm associated with you now whether I like it or not," Ryou answered wryly.

"That wasn't the question."

Ryou was beginning to show his impatience with this superabundance of needless interrogation. "Well as I recall, _you_ were the one who said first that—"

"I said that I didn't want people thinking that you were related to me. I still don't. The question is, do you want to be associated with me?"

"For someone who claims not to remember our first meeting, you certainly lack no—"

"For Satan's sake, answer the blessed question!" Bakura snapped.

Ryou felt something catch in his throat. Did he really, earnestly want to know that terribly?

"…I—I don't think I'd mind…" he answered quietly and truthfully.

Bakura averted his gaze.

"Then you can use my name. If you want," he said simply.

"I…beg your pardon?"

"You heard me." He glanced at his wristwatch. "I have to go back to Hell. Just sign me back in when you get inside. You know my number. I'll be back in about a day," he informed him carelessly.

Ryou could only stare at his receding form. Bakura sometimes told him where he was going, usually for the sake of programming the portal. But, as far as Ryou could remember, he had never once told him when he could be expected back. It was a strange discrepancy, but he was almost certain that it must have some significance. If only he knew what it could be.


	23. Chapter 23

Author's Notes: Sorry about the delay…again. Unfortunately, this was one of those chapters right before a part that I really want to write, and while I really wanted to get to writing the next few chapters, it made writing this one kind of a bother. But it does have some stuff that I couldn't just leave out, so I still had to write it, yanno. Anyway, I hope it's not too bad. The next ones will get more interesting and hopefully won't take forever to write. Even though I have school now. Dang, yo.

* * *

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter XXIII

No sooner had the words left Malik's mouth than a black car came screeching out of the wall of a nearby warehouse. Its plating shuddered as it skidded to a halt in front of the three stunned bystanders.

Malik was the first to recover. He had borne witness to Gozaburo's driving once while the man was alive. Not that Death usually had time to take note of the way that people drove. At least now he (Gozaburo) was incapable of killing anyone, but that didn't mean that he and the others weren't capable of turning a person's afterlife into a veritable nightmare. Especially if that person had stormed out of one of their precious meetings and ignored their calls and generally scorned their pitiful ideas.

He instinctively began to back away, eyeing his motorcycle with a look of hopeless yearning. No, he decided resignedly. By the time he chained in the Book and started the engine, they would have already recovered their faculties. It wouldn't even be worth the effort to try.

All four doors of the car simultaneously burst open with such force that they were literally snapped off of their hinges and sent flying through the air. One of them came so close to bowling Yugi over and decapitating him that the other spirit, "Yami," was forced to leap in front of him. The metal hit his body with a sickening crunch.

"Whoopsie," Pegasus chirped as the door clattered to the ground. It sounded suspiciously solid for spiritual material, and it was now indented with Yami's form. The spirit did not look amused.

Admittedly, neither did Malik. It was a cheap shot. Sure, it might have killed Yugi, and Yugi's death was, as far as he could see, The Goal, but it wouldn't have counted. It wasn't fair game. They would have to waste time resurrecting him, making sure all of his organs were in proper order, reattaching any missing limbs. Or heads. Ugh. Not to mention that Time always got pissy when he was wasted.

Pegasus, perceptive as usual, noticed his frown as he stepped delicately out of the automobile.

"Well, you can't blame me for trying, now can you, my dear boy?" he asked in an injured tone. "At least, you must give me credit for trying at all. Unlike some people who very conveniently dispose of their phones just when there is a crisis at hand. I mean you, of course," he added helpfully.

"I found him, didn't I?" Malik snapped defensively.

"I fear that was more luck than anything," Pegasus replied. "After all, you only called us because you didn't know what to do. But if we had had it _our_ way, you would have already known. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you mean that Bakura found him. And since Bakura works for me…"

"W-who are you?" Yugi interjected. His eyes were wide, but as far as Malik could see, that was their normal state. He seemed to be more in shock than afraid anyway.

"How remiss of me!" Pegasus exclaimed, crouching down so that he was at Yugi's eye level as he extended a hand. "I am the Devil. So very nice to meet you in the flesh, Yugi-boy. Though I would have infinitely preferred it if you existed only in spirit. I think we all would."

"You're the Devil," Yugi repeated.

"Ooh, what a clever little boy he is. Let's keep him."

"But…" For a moment, Yugi looked as if he were about to protest, but he seemed to think the better of it. "Then who are they?" he asked instead.

"We are the Board." This time the answer came from Isis. "There are eight of us. As you can see, one of our number is missing."

"Two are missing," Malik corrected her.

"Flawed as you are, I'm sure you must have at least half a brain. There is no need to count yourself as _entirely_ missing," Pegasus crooned.

Malik nearly bared his teeth at him, but caught himself.

"I meant spiritually," he spat. "If I'd meant mentally then I'd only have to count—"

"_One_ of our number is missing," Isis repeated heavily, wisely cutting him off.

It took Malik a few seconds to comprehend this. Only one missing. But that had to mean…

"But—you mean you found him?" he balked.

"Yes, we have found him."

Malik turned away and clamped a hand over his mouth to stop himself from retching. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths. There was no way he was going to let him see him like this.

"All right. Where is he?"

* * *

Joey gave the door a kick of aggravation, stubbing his toes and scuffing one of Kaiba's gleaming black shoes in the process. He kicked it again.

"Fucking little bastards," he said to himself. If he could have gone back in there to beat them down, he would have done it in an instant. They had caught him unawares, was all. If he had known what they really were, then he would have busted all their jaws the second he had laid eyes on them.

But there was no point in getting frustrated over things he couldn't change. He had learned that in Wrath, hadn't he? His job was to find Chaos, not to fantasize about cracking the skulls of small evil children. Then he could get the Board to fix Kaiba and go home and try to forget this had ever happened. Happily ever after, the end.

Joey frowned as he began to trudge down the hallway in front of him.

The end. Why did he think of it that way? It wasn't supposed to be the end. He was supposed to pick up right where he left off, halfway between chapters seventeen and eighteen in the Life of Joey Wheeler. Sure, life was a work in progress. All right, maybe you never knew when it was going to be finished. But it couldn't end just when the main character had been freed from Hell. After this, there had to be something worth living for. That was the whole point, wasn't it? That's why he was doing this in the first place. He did want to get back, didn't he?

He wasn't so sure anymore.

When was the last time he had even thought about his friends and family? Home had once been the thing he wanted most, but now it seemed like nothing more than the object of a hollow mantra. He had gotten along fine without it for who knew how long, and they…well, they had probably gotten along fine without him too.

But if he didn't care then why did it ache so badly now when he thought of everyone just forgetting him? He didn't want them to forget. Part of him, a distant part, remembered what it was like to be with his friends, his sister. To skip school to go to the arcade. To play pranks. To laze around the game shop. To build sandcastles on the beach with Serenity. Even to sprint down the darkened streets just trying to get away from his dad's drunken ravings. All of that was part of him, a part of him that he knew he wanted to reclaim. He just wasn't sure if he could do it.

Because this was a part of him, too. Ever since he had made that contract, ever since that night when Bakura rang the doorbell and Kaiba came through that window and stumbling and cursing his way into his life, Joey knew he had never been the same.

But when had he stopped wanting to go back to his life? What could he want here? He had seen it all. He knew now that when he died he was just going to be tortured or bored until he died again. Why wouldn't he want to go to a back to a world where he could do what he wanted, where he could _enjoy_ himself? What was holding him back?

His body halted in front of a door. Another door. He was beginning to hate doors. They only ever seemed to lead to more doors. What was the point?

Chaos. He had to find Chaos. But what for? No one had ever told him what was so bad about Chaos at all. He'd almost be glad if someone messed up the mind-numbing order around here.

But something kept driving him forward. His mind kept searching for a reason to go on.

Kaiba. He would do it for Kaiba.

In an instant he had thought up a million protests. Kaiba had abandoned him. Kaiba had gotten him into this mess in the first place. Kaiba didn't even like him. But none of them seemed adequate. He only had to picture Kaiba's slumped body on the floor and the hollow, lifeless expression on his face and an electric wave of terror, guilt and hundreds of other only half-decipherable emotions coursed through his own body to answer the protests.

He put his palm on the handle and tiredly slumped one shoulder against the door, bracing it. All right, for Kaiba. He had done it once, twice, before for Kaiba and himself. Now Kaiba was all he had. For now that was good enough.

* * *

Kaiba stared down the hallway almost hesitantly. Almost. He would not admit that he was hesitating. Clearly, he was just reflecting, and for good reason. He had never been to Pride. In fact, the great majority of people, sane or otherwise, had not dared venture into Hell's deepest pit. But it seemed too much to hope for that Joey would have discovered the hidden door that led to the Atrium.

Not unexpectedly, most of the members of the upper-echelons of the afterlife were, to put it bluntly, proud. They had been proud people in life and if death had not quashed that pride out of them, it made them prime candidates for leadership. Getting to the inner sanctum of Hell was a general business requirement and being able to get through the other levels unscathed was not just a qualification, but another matter of pride. So, getting through Pride itself posed definite problem for the business of the afterlife, especially when it was rumored that the Devil had designed it so that even he himself could barely make it through. Hence, why the door had been built and why he, Seto Kaiba, had never passed through the most difficult level of Hell.

Of course, he didn't have much of a choice this time. He could just go to the Atrium and wait for Joey on the other side, but it was very probable that Joey would end up trapped in there, and the longer someone was in Hell, the harder it was to get them out.

He dragged his fingers along the wall that hid the door as he started forward once again, unsure for the first time what lay ahead of him and how to deal with it. But it couldn't be too difficult. If Pegasus had a hard time getting through it, then it probably involved a severe lack of alcohol, some well placed mirrors, and just enough static electricity to mess up someone's hair. Annoying, but compared to putting up with Joey? A piece of cake.

* * *

Yugi watched as the woman's long, slender arm swung towards him in a large sweeping gesture.

Malik looked surprised and then irritated.

"I already know about _him_," he said through clenched teeth. "You can't mean that he—unless…unless…"

"Unless what?" Yugi prompted.

Malik studied him intensely.

"No, he can't be," Malik said decisively. "I mean, just look at him! How could he be Chaos?"

"A simple question to answer," the green-haired man said, looking just as annoyed as Malik. "He isn't. As Pegasus said, if you had just showed up—"

"Well, I didn't," Malik snapped. "So just tell me where he is."

"Who?" Isis asked. "You claimed two were missing. Both are lost yet."

Malik lowered his head and crossed his arms over his chest, a picture of confusion, anger, and defeat.

"But _you_ said…" Yugi began slowly. Isis smiled at him gently and the words vanished in his throat.

"Perhaps another question," she suggested, still smiling.

Yugi thought. There were so many. But asking questions of this woman would be like asking questions of Yami. He had to choose the right ones. He glanced at the spirit hovering beside him and felt a surge of courage.

"Who am I?" he asked.

"You are a young man. A human being. A soul. Above all, you are Yugi Motou."

"Then what am I?" he pressed.

"You are good."

"Oh," Yugi said, taken aback. "Er…thank you?"

"It was not a compliment," Isis replied solemnly. "It was a statement of fact. You are the embodiment of Goodness itself. You are a member of the Board, a governor of the afterlife, though you yourself will not pass into it except of your own volition. Such is your power. Such was once the power of us all."

"A-and that's why I can't die?" Yugi asked hazily.

"No. You will die, as all humans must. Your body will one day fall, an empty shell. But you will not pass into the afterlife until you feel you are ready, and so, in some sense, your death is immaterial."

"There has to be some mistake, though," Yugi insisted. "I-I'm just…just me. I do all sorts of wrong things and think bad thoughts and…I'm not good. How can I be Good? I'm sorry, I—why can't this be a dream? Why is it never a dream? This is insane!"

"Isn't that just what I said," Pegasus murmured. "If it is any consolation, though I do hate giving consolation, but we are a bit pressed for time, I occasionally have slightly less than evil thoughts as regards soft fluffy bunnies and a good red wine."

"You're the Devil," Yami said disbelieving. It was the first time he had spoken during the course of this encounter, but his reaction summed up the feelings of everyone present.

"Of course, resounding screams of eternal anguish give me the same sort of tingly feeling inside, but I don't think that's quite the same thing, is it? In any case, Yugi-boy, perfection is a lofty goal. There's no need to blame yourself for trying to think of a way to make-out with a ghost."

"He's not a ghost, he's a guardian!" Yugi shouted before he could stop himself. "And—and I don't—"

He felt his cheeks burning and could only imagine their red flush. He knew Yami was looking at him. Everyone else there didn't matter. Just him. What would he think? And how had this man stumbled on that? Could he read minds? Or was he just that obvious? It had just been that once, but…but it was just a thought. One fleeting thought. Everybody had weird thoughts like that sometimes, right? It hadn't even lasted that long! Yami didn't even know about it and he was with him all the time. At least he didn't think that Yami knew about it. What if he did? What if this was just confirmation? What would he _think_? What _did_ he think?

"That was the right word, wasn't it? Make-out? I think it was. Well, whatever the term, it's all very compromising, isn't it?" Pegasus said, with a small, wicked smile. "But, you know, it's not necrophilia if you're dead too. It's really a very simple procedure; wouldn't you say so, Malik?"

Malik scowled and crossed his arms over his chest again.

"Wouldn't you say so, Malik?" Pegasus repeated innocently.

"Yes," Malik grumbled.

"You see? All it takes is one little signature, and you can have what you want."

"Anything I want?" Yugi asked, his mood suddenly brightening. His embarrassment evaporated and was replaced only by hope.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and he jumped at the unexpected touch.

"Yugi," Yami began, "you, ah…"

No! He didn't want to think about that! No, no, no! He shook the spirit's hand off and confronted the Devil.

"Anything?" he insisted.

The man faltered uncharacteristically.

"Well, that depends on what it is. There are, of course, a few limitations…"

Yugi brushed his words away. "I want Joey back and alive and happy. If you can do that then…" He lowered his eyes, averting his gaze as he held out his palms. He forced himself to say it. "Then I'll do whatever you want."

Behind him, he heard a sharp intake of breath.

* * *

The first thing he noticed about the room was that it was cold. Bitterly cold. Even just the faint breeze that flowed through the door was enough to seep through the clothes he had borrowed from Kaiba and deep into his skin. The second, was that it was shiny. Gigantic crystal structures of clear rock, or maybe ice, littered the ground along with long, flat gleaming stretches of nothingness. The third thing he noticed was that it was empty. Of course, most of the rooms that he had seen in Hell had been empty, but not like this. It was like a barren rock in the middle of an arctic tundra. It didn't need people. The solitude was, in some way, purposeful.

Joey slowly entered, his footfalls piercing the silence with their echoes. Behind him the door crashed, making even the air shudder as it shut definitively, but he couldn't bring himself to go back to test its hold. He was only a few steps away, but he already felt as if turning back now would find him lost forever.

He carefully continued forward, looking around at the vast emptiness in wonder. His breath clouded his vision as it escaped from his lips, and his eyes followed its climbing path in awe. It didn't dissipate; instead, the wispy puff soared up, up, until it hung high above his head in a greater cloud of fog that obscured the ceiling. He blew into the air again, trying to figure out what it all meant. It had to mean something. Every Sin had a way of trying to make you stay by preying on your emotions. So what would get you stuck in Pride? All he needed to do was find out the answer to that riddle, and he would be set free.

Suddenly, he felt himself sinking. He looked down to see that he was standing on one of the shiny patches on the floor. And he was horrified. Far below him he could see the swirl and flicker of shadows as they passed in and out of his view, floating or swimming, he couldn't tell. One of them slid just beneath him, pressing itself close to Joey's feet and clawing furiously at the transparent boundary. They were human, but just barely.

Joey yelped as he leapt from the patch to the far less transparent ground around it, but as soon as he stood there for more than a few seconds, he began to sink again. He ran. If he kept moving, then he couldn't sink. But would he get tired here? Would he have to stop running eventually and be sucked into the ground? If the emptiness of the room was any hint, then the answer was yes.

But there had to be something that he could do! There had to be a way out. It couldn't just be a dead end. Other souls had to come down here, even if just on business or something, and they had to have a way out.

He slowed his pace. There was no point in tiring himself so quickly. If he was walking, he was still moving, right? But as he walked, the ground seemed to pull at his feet, making each step more difficult than the last. He was still panting as if he hadn't stopped sprinting. There had to be a way that he could just sit and—

He had it.

He clambered atop one of the many giant crystals sticking out of the ground. It was as cold to the touch as it was to the sight, but it wasn't as if the whole thing would sink into the ground. He sighed in relief as he curled up against it. He had outsmarted the quick-ice floor; now to find a way to beat this level.

He rested his head against the unforgiving pillow of…what was it, rock or ice? He still didn't know, but it didn't matter. He stared blankly at the lucent surface as he tried to form a plan of attack. What if…Slowly, he became aware that something felt wrong. He couldn't place it. He was fine here. He wasn't sinking. And the only thing he could see was…eyes. In the crystal. There were eyes watching him, reflecting off of the many facets. How many were there? Dozens, hundreds, above him, below him, around him.

He jerked backwards, or tried to, only to find that he was frozen in place.

No…no!

He jerked his body away from the crystal, throwing himself in every direction until he heard a gut-churning rip and he fell to the floor. His face and hands scorched with pain. Through the half-frozen tears that welled in his eyes, he could see that his palms were burned red, as if half the skin had been ripped off of them.

But now that he was touching the ground, he was sinking again.

He stood up and staggered forward, burning his hands again as he used the crystal for balance. The cuff of his sleeve stuck to it, and it ripped as he pulled it off. The torn fabric melted into the crystal.

But he couldn't just stand there watching; he was sinking again.

He ran, but he could hardly see where he was going for all the pain. He slipped. His body skidded. He wanted to yell, to scream in frustration and anger, but when he opened his mouth, he could hardly make a sound. He tried again, but this time the sound was even fainter. Again and all that came out of his mouth was a puff of air that floated with the others to the invisible ceiling.

…The puffs. Were they stealing his air or his voice? Even if he managed to get himself up and running, would he suffocate or just go insane from the silence?

It was no use. He felt himself being engulfed by the floor. Maybe it was better this way.

No. He fought away the thought. He had to get out of here. There had to be a way! He held his breath and struggled, but everything just seemed to pull harder.

He couldn't do this. If only Kaiba were here. He needed someone, something to help him. But the only people here hadn't even been able to help themselves. Who could save him? Not Kaiba, not himself. Who was in charge? Who could call this off?

There was only one person: The Devil.

He couldn't! He wouldn't!

But he was already neck-deep into the other side of the glassy barrier.

He felt a huge lump in the very back of his throat and swallowed.

"Please," he croaked using one final burst of effort. "Please, help."

And he let himself go. There was nothing left that he could do.


End file.
